


Parallel Lines (the OTP Challenge Squared)

by DangerousCommieSubversive



Series: The Shapes Of Our Lives [1]
Category: Young Avengers
Genre: 30 Days OTP Challenge, M/M, NSFW, The Author Regrets Nothing, nohmmy, some of this is porn, the author is dangerously insane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-27 22:12:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 40,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/667055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangerousCommieSubversive/pseuds/DangerousCommieSubversive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hold onto your socks, my dears, because this is a double <a href="http://ericandy.tumblr.com/post/26596382488/ericandys-30-day-otp-challenge">30-Day OTP Challenge</a>. Do you love the Young Avengers? Can you not get enough of dudes smooching? This is going to be a solid month of YA goodness in two relationships: Billy Kaplan/Teddy Altman and Tommy Shepherd/Noh-Varr.</p><p>Come and see!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His Hand In Mine/What Tommy Doesn't Do

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to start on Monday, but it's starting today instead because [Billywick](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Billywick/pseuds/Billywick) was impatient and I live to please. Thank you to Zethsaire for reading the first few days and reassuring me that they don't suck! If you would rather have it show up in your feed, it is also going up on [my Tumblr](http://dangerouscommiesubversive.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Your soundtrack for the day is as follows:
> 
>  _His Hand In Mine_ : "[Superheroes](http://youtu.be/bRt5z880CFY)," Daft Punk  
>  _What Tommy Doesn't Do_ : "[Inca Roads](http://youtu.be/Kg6X2hsl52E)," Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day one prompt: Holding hands

_His Hand In Mine_

They don't fly at quite the same pace most of the time, which makes carrying on a really lengthy conversation a bit difficult, and staying side-by-side nearly impossible. Today they're trying something new, though.

It was Teddy's idea. Teddy watches too much wrestling, which is something that Billy has trouble processing given that his boyfriend is such a freaking _sensitive artist_ literally _all the rest of the time._

Teddy's hand in his is also warm and dry and strong, because Teddy is somehow never nervous and he _doesn't sweat_ , which may be the least fair thing on the planet. Their fingers are twisted together. Teddy glances over at him and gives his hand a squeeze. “We're doing this. It's going to be all right.”

Billy stares at the scene before them. “ _Why_ are we helping this guy again? You remember that one time where he beat us all up, right?”

“We're helping him because we're _heroes_ , remember?” Another reassuring squeeze. “He may be a total psycho and on Earth illegally and all, but _nobody_ deserves to get kidnapped by AIM. They'll just try to dissect him or do something to make him way worse. And since when do we listen to the Avengers when they say someone can't be a hero?”

“Also, when did AIM start building Doombots?”

“Not a clue. Maybe they stole one from Doom and reverse engineered it?”

“Wow. Supervillain team-up.”

“Nerd.” Teddy smiles at him, and Billy feels his heart lifting just a little. In all his time staring out the window somehow he'd forgotten how good it felt to be in the air, about to save someone's day. “You ready, Bee?”

He nods, flicking his hair out of his eyes. “Ready when you are, Tee.”

“Then on 3, 2, 1...”

They dive forward and clothesline the Doombot.

Billy rolls the phrase around in his mind like a beautiful, insane, wonderful marble.

_They clothesline the Doombot._

It's pretty awesome.

How did he ever forget that _being a hero kicks ass?_

Then it explodes, taking out several nearby Doombots and knocking out an AIM beekeeper with a piece of flying shrapnel.

“Man,” Kate says from her perch nearby. “Have standards fallen or something? That was _weak_ for a Doombot. Nice move, boys.”

“It was Teddy's idea.” The heat's back in his chest, the rush of _we came, we saw, we kicked its ass._ (Because even when he's talking to _himself_ he can't help being a fanboy.) “I just helped.”

Kate nocks, raises her bow, and shoots in one smooth motion, and a nearby beekeeper falls, yelling and scrabbling at the arrow in his ankle. “Well, could you do it again? We have more robots.”

Teddy squeezes his hand again and says, “Yeah, sure.”

 

 --

 

 _What Tommy Doesn't Do_

When the fight is over and they're surrounded by the smoking wreckage of Doombots and a lot of sleeping beekeepers, Tommy goes over to the person they'd been saving and holds out his hand. “Get your ass up before the Avengers get here and lose their shit.”

The alien—who also has white hair, which is simultaneously cool and weird, why is everyone biting his style?—grabs his hand and pulls himself up. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem. You beat us all up one time, remember?”

The alien guy has the grace to look at least vaguely embarassed. And he hasn't let go of Tommy's hand. “There were misunderstandings.”

“I should _think_ so.” Tommy pauses. “So anyone the Avengers think is a hazard and want off-planet is a friend of mine. And I hear you're part cockroach, which is pretty cool. I'm Speed.”

“I'm Noh-Varr. It's nice to meet you, Speed.” Noh-Varr is squinting at the others, who have finally finished up with the last Doombot and are heading over.

Tommy frowns down at their clasped hands. “You, uh, you can let go of my hand now.”

“I can, yes.” He doesn't.

“By which I mean hand-holding isn't a thing I do, especially with alien cockroaches I've just met.” Pause. No progress. “By which I mean _let go._ ”

Noh-Varr lets go, _finally._ “I apologize. I still have occasional trouble with human idioms.”

“And personal space, apparently. So why'd you come back to Earth?”

Noh-Varr smiles beatifically. “How could I stay away?”

“Point.” Tommy shakes his hand out theatrically as the others reach them. “Hey, guys, I found this alien, and the Avengers think he's almost as dangerous as Billy. His name is Noh-Varr. Can we keep him?”

Billy doesn't really look like he approves—and he and _Teddy_ are holding hands, because they're _gross—_ but his _mouth_ is at least smiling, and he says, “I don't know, Speed. Having an alien is a big responsibility.”

“Yeah, you'd know, wouldn't you?”

Teddy also looks skeptical even as he runs with the joke. “You'll have to feed him, and clean up after him, and take him for walks...”

“Good point.” Tommy looks over at Noh-Varr. “So what? Do dangerous wildcard aliens eat pizza? Because that's what we're having tonight.”

Noh-Varr shrugs. “I eat anything.”

“See? He eats anything. I don't know about taking him for _walks_ , though, given that I don't really _do_ walking, and _speaking_ of walks are we heading back to the lair now? I need pizza.”

Kate rolls her eyes. “All right, then, we're adopting this alien, I can hear police sirens, Tommy's impatient, it's a regular Wednesday evening for the Young Avengers.” She glances at Billy and Teddy. “I'll order the pizzas and be there in forty.”

She hails a taxi, and Billy and Teddy take off to fly back to the lair.

Tommy looks over at Noh-Varr and shrugs. “Race you?”


	2. Back In The Game/Personal Bubble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day two prompt: Cuddling somewhere
> 
> Takes a liberal definition of the word "cuddling." Hehe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your soundtrack for the day is as follows:
> 
>  _Back In The Game_ : "[Fly Me Away](http://youtu.be/PchpXNm9tWo)," Goldfrapp  
>  _Personal Bubble_ : "[Don't Stand So Close To Me](http://youtu.be/KNIZofPB8ZM)," the Police

_Back In The Game_

Once they're just out of sight of the others, Billy and Teddy set down on a rooftop. Billy is breathing hard; after a seven-month fast from using his powers, he's actually pretty exhausted. Teddy doesn't look exhausted, but that's because _Teddy's been sneaking out and doing hero stuff anyway._ Obviously. And also he's never tired, because life isn't fair, but that isn't terrible because _Billy Kaplan is dating and allowed to kiss and going to marry a golden god._

He's zoned out. He realizes this because he snaps back to reality at the touch of Teddy's hand on his cheek. “Bill? You in there?”

“Oh! Yeah, no, I'm here, I'm fine.” He blinks hard, trying to clear his head. “I'm just...surprisingly tired from all the magic-doing. And I love you.”

Teddy turns faintly pink, which he always does when Billy says that. Billy knows that he does the same thing when Teddy says it to him, because neither of them have ever quite gotten the hang of the idea that they're both in this, that they both _have_ this. “I love you too.”

“Good.” He shuts his eyes, intending to lift himself into the air again, but ends up just swaying on his feet. “Whoa...”

“Hey, whoa, don't fall over.” Teddy gets an arm around his waist, and for a moment they move together, in a silly little we're-exhausted dance. “Here. Arms up. I'll carry you back.”

“'m not a princess. I don't need to be carried.” All the same, Billy wraps his arms around Teddy's neck and presses his face into his boyfriend's collarbone, breathing the soap-sunlight-ocean-ink smell of him in deep.

“You're _totally_ a princess.” Teddy gets one arm around his back, the other under his knees, and cradles him close. “All you need now is one of those pointy hats with the scarf on top. We'll put stars on it, it'll double as a wizard hat.”

“Does that make you my white knight?” They lift off, and Billy takes a moment to enjoy the feeling of the muscles in Teddy's chest flexing as he beats his wings. “You'll need a hat too. A big horse head that you can store things in.”

“Of course. Didn't you know that I already have one? It's my own invention.”

“Nerd.”

For a few minutes they fly in silence, Billy nestled close to Teddy's chest, and then they land on the roof of the lair. Teddy doesn't put Billy down, which Billy thinks about objecting to, but then he changes his mind. It's nice. Instead he opens the roof door with magic so that Teddy doesn't have to let go of him, and they make their way down to the sort-of living room Kate put together for them and colonize a couch.

Billy stays curled up in Teddy's lap, face against his neck, and for a moment he shuts his eyes so he can just savor the moment. They haven't done this in ages, just sitting together like this, both in costume. He's back to being a hero, and he can't imagine why he ever left. “Let's just...be like this forever, ok?”

“Sounds good to me.” Teddy shifts so that he's lying down with Billy on top of him. “Or at least until Tommy gets here and starts making faces at us.”

“Yeah, where is Tommy, anyway? Normally he's back before us.”

\--

_Personal Bubble_

Tommy runs a circuit around the city before heading to the lair, enjoying the feeling of the wind on his face and the freedom of being able to move at his own damn pace for once. Noh-Varr keeps up well enough, although he's not quite as fast as Tommy is. _Nobody's_ as fast as Tommy, and that's all well and good. Can't start having real _competition_ , right?

He slows a bit to let the alien catch up with him. “Out of breath yet, bug boy?”

“Not at all, Speed. I could do this all day.” Apparently that's true; Noh-Varr doesn't look even remotely tired. He takes long strides and swings his arms like he's out for a stroll in the park. “You know, I can't race you if I don't know where we're going.”

Tommy grins his most annoying grin and rattles off the address of the lair at high speed, because just because the guy can _run_ fast doesn't mean he can _hear_ fast and—

“Whoa whoa what are you doing? Put me down!” Because now he's doing his _least_ favorite thing, which is to say moving at high speed but not propelling himself.

Noh-Varr shoots an equally annoying grin down at him. “I didn't feel like racing, and you seemed tired. I wanted to make sure you could keep up.”

“Personal _bubble,_ man!”

“I don't understand.”

“Check the dictionary under personal space, you are getting in my. Seriously, is this why the Avengers kicked you out? Is it because you're super grabby?” Not that it's not kind of _nice,_ and Tommy did _not_ just think that, because no. _No._ He doesn't like guys. Especially not grabby alien guys who he's starting to regret vouching for. Grabby alien guys with _very nice blue eyes_ and no no no. Tommy Shepherd is going to shut up now. Tommy Shepherd's brain is stupid.

“You don't _seem_ stupid. But I've been told that when it comes to humans I'm not a very good judge of character.”

Shit. Did he say that last part out loud? _How much did he say out loud just now?_ Noh-Varr is still grinning his annoying grin, and obviously _he's_ not going to share.

“We're here, Tommy Shepherd.”

So he said enough out loud to tell the alien his real name.

Noh-Varr _hasn't put him down yet._ “The door is locked.”

He makes a face. “Of course it's locked. This is New York City. Are you going to put me down now?” He could probably make a break for it, but Noh-Varr is stronger than he is, which is a little frustrating.

“I wasn't planning on it. Would you like me to?”

 _No, not really, this is kinda nice._ “ _Yes._ Down. _Now._ ”

“Say please.”

“I can blow you up, you know.”

Noh-Varr puts him down, _finally_ , and just to prove that he's still the coolest Young Avenger, he vibrates himself through the door and unlocks it from the inside. “Welcome to _chez_ Young Avengers, Noh-Varr the alien stray that I'm starting to regret keeping. If you ever pick me up again your nuts will be forfeit.”

Noh-Varr steps over the threshhold and wipes his feet on the mat politely. He looks around the front room with some approval, but all he says is, “You're very cute when you're annoyed.”

Tommy chokes on his own spit. _“What?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noh-Varr, my darling, you come on like Mrs. Robinson.


	3. Show Me Your Moves/Too Slow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Gaming/watching a movie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is specially for my friend [Zethsaire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Zethsaire/pseuds/Zethsaire), who got me into writing Nohmmy in the first place. ^_^
> 
> Your soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Show Me Your Moves_ : "[I Am Not Your Gameboy](http://youtu.be/nyDYwBdvV2Q)," Freezepop  
>  _Too Slow_ : [Green Hill Zone theme](http://youtu.be/UEannNh8ihA), Sonic the Hedgehog

_Show Me Your Moves_

Kate always pays for the food, because she's the rich one, but she never carries them in, because filling the bottomless pit that is the collective Young Avengers stomach generally takes four large pizzas and two orders of breadsticks. She's gotten an extra pizza and more breadsticks this time, and a really big order of buffalo wings, which they find out when Noh-Varr lifts his head and sniffs the air with interest. “I smell chicken.”

A moment later they hear the door opening, and from the front of the building Kate shouts, “Taxi's idling!”

Teddy's on his feet like a shot, tumbling Billy off the couch in the process. “Pizza's here!”

Billy groans. “That's nice. I'll just lie here. Dying. Because you knocked me over.”

“Or you could get the Wii set up while I go get the pizzas.” Teddy makes for the door and then pauses. “Hey, new guy. Noh-Varr. Come help me with dinner.”

Noh-Varr nods and gets up, just as Kate shouts, “This is a three person job today! And I'm not one of those three!”

Tommy makes a face and gets up too. “We're coming!”

“Good!”

Billy groans again, just to let everyone know how much it pains him to do this, and says, “I'll set up the Wii, then.”

Fifteen minutes later the entire living room smells like pizza and they're all piled onto the three couches (because Kate doesn't believe in having a living room where she doesn't always have the option of lounging). Billy and Teddy have one couch, and Noh-Varr sat down next to Tommy over Tommy's protests, and Kate has a couch to herself. She's team leader, she gets her own couch.

“Bee, you _always_ pick Zelda.”

“Because she's awesome!” Billy gestures enormously with his slice of pizza. “Check that shit out!”

“She's a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, well, you just play Ike because you don't like to do anything subtle.”

Tommy looks at them sidelong. “Is this what geek flirting is like? Are you two going to have to excuse yourselves? Because I'd really like to start the match now.”

Teddy snorts, and then gets a contemplative look on his face. “ _That_ wasn't geek flirting. _This_ is geek flirting.” He turns to Billy, points a finger gun at him, and says, in his deepest, most seductive voice, “Show me your _moves._ ”

The blood rushes to Billy's face, and as he dives in for an extremely pizza-flavored kiss he hears, dimly, Tommy saying, “No! No, Billy, come _on, don't_ show him your—oh, _cut_ that out. Seriously. Kate, help me out here.”

Billy pulls away, flips Tommy off, and says, “You're too _slow._ ”

“Oh, now it's _on._ ”

\--

_Too Slow_

While Tommy and Teddy and Billy are having their verbal sparring session, Kate walks Noh-Varr through the control scheme and character selection. It's interesting; he recalls seeing some of the other Avengers playing games like this, but he'd never taken a particular interest in it before.

“Who's that one?”

“That's Captain Falcon. He races spaceships.”

He considers the little figure on the screen. “I like that. He has clarity of purpose _and_ military rank.”

“Go for it, then. He's a good starter character. Tommy's going to play Sonic, like he always does, and I've got Samus.”

He follows her instructions on how to select the character and its costume, and he's all set for the game to start when Tommy grabs his elbow and says, “Noh-Varr. The gauntlet has been cast. Help me kick their asses. I need you _with_ me on this.”

This is slightly difficult to process. “I thought this was every fighter for themselves?”

“Well, _yeah,_ but we need to get Billy and Teddy out _first._ ”

Noh-Varr considers the request. This particular human is attractive, and exciting, and he smells good. He also generates a lot of body heat, which makes Noh-Varr want to be very close to him, because as a part-insect he appreciates a good heat source. Given that the relevant discussion seems to have been about courting rituals, as well, which are in some way _connected_ to this game... “All right. I can't promise that I'll be very good at it, though. I did only just learn.”

“ _Anyone_ can win with Captain Falcon.”

“If you say so.”

Kate selects the stage, and the game turns out to be _incredibly confusing_ , but Noh-Varr forges gamely on. Tommy's small blue thing is continually screeching about the other players being too slow, and that's interesting, so he glances over to see what Tommy's doing to get that to happen and hits the same buttons.

His small space captain says, in a deep and fairly pleasant voice, “Show me your moves.”

Wasn't that what Teddy said? Just before they...?

He edges his space captain over to Tommy's blue thing and hits the button again. “Show me your moves,” it says.

“Oh god,” says Kate on the next couch. “Noh-Varr's found the taunt button.”

It's not working. He must not be doing it right.

He frowns, and his stomach takes that moment to remind him that he's still hungry, so he leans forward and snags one of the buffalo wings, which he hasn't gotten a chance to try yet. They're quite small; one bite gets more than half of it. Pleasantly crunchy, though, and the spices are very nice.

The others have paused the game, and are staring at him in horror. He blinks, lowering the other half of the buffalo wing as he works the last sliver of bone out of his teeth with his tongue. “Have I done something wrong?”

Tommy puts down his Wiimote and makes several attempts to start a sentence, gesturing frantically as he does so. “Did you—you just—you bit through—bone! You ate a chicken bone!”

“Yes, is that wrong? It's very tasty.”

There's a long pause, and then Billy says, “You really _do_ eat anything.”

“You,” Tommy says. “You. Are _awesome._ ” He picks his Wiimote back up and flings himself back against the cushions, pleasantly warm next to Noh-Varr's arm. “We're going to be a _great_ team.”

Noh-Varr eats the rest of his buffalo wing and smiles. Maybe he _was_ doing it right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noh-Varr will eat your buffalo wings, bone and all. And Tommy totally _always_ plays Sonic. ^_^


	4. Surely That Is Not The Best You Can Do/Essential New York Experiences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: On a date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty tame. ^_^ And cute! I am pleased with it.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Surely That Is Not The Best You Can Do_ : "[Drive-In Saturday](http://youtu.be/iHO0prgzVZo)," David Bowie  
>  _Essential New York Experiences_ : "[Empire State Of Mind](http://youtu.be/0UjsXo9l6I8)," Jay-Z

_Surely That Is Not The Best You Can Do_

It's a good day for a date.

Billy honestly hasn't been out of the house at all much since...things happened, so going on a date is really kind of a nice idea. He's got seven months of comics to catch up on, after all, and Teddy claims that if he doesn't get some sun soon then he's going to start sprouting mushrooms.

“You're going outside. And I'm going with you. And that's final.”

Which is why they're in the back of a mostly-empty movie theater, of course, and not outside at all. The theater's playing a double-feature of really terrible Seventies kung fu movies, and they're switching pretty continuously between laughing, cringing, and making out. They have a big bucket of popcorn, and one of those vats of soda that you can only get at a movie theater, and it's wonderful. It's perfect.

Billy peers at the screen and laughs. “Does that say what I think it says?”

“I don't know,” Teddy whispers to him. “ _I'm_ pretty sure it says, 'You're a bad guy, where's your library card?' But I don't know what you're seeing.”

“That's what I saw too! _I'm_ not a bad guy...” he digs in his front pockets. “Shit, where _is_ my library card?”

“Here, lemme help you look for that...” Teddy leans over the armrest and slides his hand into the back pocket of Billy's jeans. “Well, I found _something_ , but I'm pretty sure it's _not_ your library card.”

“You _perv._ ” Billy swats him on the nose, which turns into Teddy licking popcorn butter off his fingers, which almost leads to them leaving the theater early and teleporting back to the room at the lair that's technically theirs even though they still live with the Kaplans. But then the action star on the screen does something completely ridiculous and they're entranced again.

After the movie they head to Midtown Comics, so that Billy actually _can_ catch up on seven months of missed comics, and they get a stack of new trades and a couple of posters for the living room at the lair (which they're seriously thinking about moving into, once their eighteenth birthdays hit). _Then_ they go ride the Staten Island ferry, for no reason other than to sit together and look at the water.

They haven't been on a date this good in ages. Not since _before_ things happened, actually. It's a pretty great day.

\--

_Essential New York Experiences_

It's not a date. No matter how much it might look like one.

But, as Tommy had explained to Noh-Varr that morning, “You've been on Earth _how_ long? Living in New York City for some of it. But you've never had a milkshake, you've never gotten kicked out of the zoo, and you've never gotten crappy Chinese food and then thrown up in a trashcan.”

“No,” Noh-Varr had said. “Should I have?”

“ _Yes._ These are essential New York City _experiences._ Look, you said you like Earth. You want to learn more about Earth culture, right?”

And so they're at the zoo, and Noh-Varr is staring in fascination at this zebra, even though it isn't doing anything especially interesting, just pacing circles around its enclosure. Tommy stands next to him, dancing from foot to foot. “What's so exciting about the zebras? They're just horses with an interesting paint job. Come on, I need to go see the gorillas. Last time I was here I was trying to teach them how to flip people off, and I wanna see if they remembered.”

Noh-Varr takes an absent slurp of his milkshake and says, “This animal's genitalia is fascinating. It moves like an additional tail. I haven't seen this in other Earth fauna.”

“I did _not_ take you here so that you could stare at zebra dick.” Tommy pauses and follows Noh-Varr's line of sight. “Holy shit, though. It _does._ ”

They stare at the zebra's waving dick for a few minutes—in a way that is neither _gay_ nor _fucked up—_ while Noh-Varr finishes his milkshake.

Then the idea hits Tommy like a bolt of lightning. “Man. If you're part bug...what happens if we go check out the reptile house?”

What happens is, they get kicked out of the zoo. In fact they get _chased_ out of the zoo, by Roy, Tommy's favorite security guard. Roy _always_ kicks him out. It's almost like they're _family._ In some ways he's _closer_ to Roy than to his actual family.

Roy waves his fist at them as they hurry out the gate. “We've got your picture in the back office, kid! Next time you show up here I'm calling the cops!”

They go get Chinese food next, in the best kind of Chinese place. It's below street level, and the menu is written on the wall, and none of the other customers are speaking English. And the food is _terrible._ It forms into a little hard ball in the pit of his stomach, and it feels like _joy._ They get dumplings and General Tso's and wonton soup and some kind of seafood thing that Noh-Varr orders by pointing at a random string of characters on the wall, because that's how you _do_ it.

“You were right, Tommy Shepherd,” Noh-Varr says in between pulls on his second milkshake of the day. “This is surprisingly enjoyable. The zoo was very edifying.”

Tommy only looks up from the trash can he's being sick in long enough to say, “I shouldn't have had the third helping of dumplings.”

“Probably not. I don't think it agreed with you. I'd vomit too, to keep you company, but my stomach acids solidify into weapons-grade fissionable materials when they leave my body, and as I recall, it's considered impolite here to leave that sort of thing lying around.”

Tommy doesn't say anything, because he's too busy vomiting. Noh-Varr takes a step in closer and starts rubbing his back with one hand, which feels really nice. His other hand smoothes Tommy's hair back, because clearly the time for a haircut is now.

It's a decent way to end a date. Or it would be, if this was a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Surely that is not the best you can do" is a quote from _Meet The Robinsons_ , from a section where they parody badly-dubbed kung fu movies. "You're a bad guy, where's your library card?" is an actual subtitle from a real badly translated kung fu movies. And yes. Zebra dicks are scary.


	5. He Sees Stars/Mixed Signals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: kissing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one gets dedicated to Kieron Gillen, for admitting that he wants people to slash his characters and for getting me into Sixties girl groups. ^_^
> 
> Your soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _He Sees Stars_ : "[Baby I Love You](http://youtu.be/gbbRkHazUIg)," the Ronettes  
>  _Mixed Signals_ : "[Give Him A Great Big Kiss](http://youtu.be/lp8WLiyhbYo)," the Shangri-Las

_He Sees Stars_

Billy and Teddy get back from their date in time for dinner, and his parents (his sort-of parents, part of his brain tells him) smile indulgently at the sight of their flushed faces and their bag of comics. The boys, meanwhile, make disgusted faces at them and stick out their tongues, because _children have no sense of romance._ Billy isn't quite sure when _he_ started having a sense of the romantic, but he's pretty sure he didn't have one at their age. And he's definitely got one now, even if it's been severely warped by virtue of the fact that the things most people think are romantic are actually incredibly boring.

The romantic end to their day isn't some kind of moonlit walk or anything, it's just the two of them curled up on the couch together, viciously heckling an episode of _Star Trek: Voyager_ and reading comics. There isn't a doorway for them to kiss in, unless you count the doorway to the guest room where Teddy is nominally staying.

Actually, no, they totally count that. That counts as a doorway to kiss in.

It takes them a minute, though, because Billy is still getting used to feeling even remotely human after such a long time of feeling empty and worn. Teddy drops the bag of comics on top of his dresser and they stand there, awkwardly, and the moment almost gets sunk, which would be a crashing let-down after such a wonderful day.

Then Teddy says, “So today was—”

And Billy says, “I love you,” and kisses him.

It's completely different from how it's been. In the past seven months they've kissed, of course. Billy has kissed Teddy and allowed himself to _be_ kissed, because it's reflexive. It's what couples do, and no matter what happens, they're a couple. They're a pair. Together and always, forever and ever, they belong to each other.

But for seven months there was nothing like this.

This, unexpectedly and unashamedly, is _passion._

It's not, in the balance of things, an especially long kiss, but there's _fire_ in it. It sounds like a cliché, Billy knows, or it would sound like a cliché if he tried to explain it to someone, but it's the only way he can think to put it. It's a kiss that tastes like cheap movie theater popcorn and the Staten Island ferry and a really great day with someone that he loves. Someone he loves a really, really stupid amount, someone he'd kill for, someone he'd die for.

There's a funny little whistling noise that he can't identify, and then Teddy pulls back and says, “Bee...?”

He beams. “Yes?”

“You, uh...” Teddy points. “You have stars.”

“I what?” He looks up, and laughs. Blue stars are circling his head, like they're in an old cartoon. “I have stars! I've never had stars before.”

“It's cute. You look like, I don't know, you're like Mickey Mouse.”

“ _Mickey Mouse?_ I am _not_ like Mickey Mouse! How am I like Mickey Mouse?”

“ _Fantasia?_ The Sorceror's Apprentice? Don't worry, I like it.” Teddy kisses him again, and it's just as good as the first one, and now the stars are all around them, a whole blue galaxy in the guest room. “I love you too.”

\--

_Mixed Signals_

After Tommy's done throwing up all his terrible Chinese food, they grab some gum at a convenience store and go see a really bad action movie, which Noh-Varr eats up with almost as much enthusiasm as the popcorn—and the popcorn bucket, and the napkins, which Tommy doesn't notice until it's too late. Noh-Varr doesn't even seem to notice that he's switched over from junk food to actual junk, he's so absorbed in the fakey explosions on the screen. He laughs at a lot of things that Tommy doesn't exactly see the humor in, either, but it's sort of nice to see someone having so much fun with something so stupid.

When the movie lets out they race back to the lair, and Noh-Varr does _not_ pick Tommy up this time, because seriously. Nuts. _Forfeit._ It only gets weird when they get to the building and stop in the doorway. It's not like anyone's getting dropped off, since they both live there (Tommy in a room of his own where the Kaplans can't _smother him_ and Noh-Varr in the room that Eli never used), but Tommy doesn't feel like going through the door. So he fumbles for the key in his pocket, and while he's unlocking the door Noh-Varr says, “Today was extremely enjoyable, thank you,” and leans forward, and lips brush his cheek.

Tommy freezes with his hand on the door knob and turns around very, very slowly, which is _agonizing._ “Ok. Ok. Noh-Varr.”

Noh-Varr smiles down at him from his infuriating four-inch height advantage. “Tommy Shepherd?”

“Two questions.”

“Yes?”

“First question. _What_ was that?”

Noh-Varr blinks, and his smile fades slightly. “I kissed you. That's the customary human action at the end of a date, isn't it? That's always what Annie did, not that we went on many—”

“ _Whoa_ there.” Tommy shakes his head hard, as if that will somehow make his life _slightly more sane._ “This _wasn't_ a date. This was me educating you on the ways of having a good time in New York City, because you don't _know_ this stuff and for some reason you think _I'm_ the person to—you've been flirting with me this whole time, haven't you. With the hand grabbing and the picking me up and the weird thing with Captain Falcon and the total lack of personal bubble and how you keep sitting next to me on the couch.”

Now Noh-Varr's face has managed to go from a fading smile to a puzzled frown. “Of course. Weren't you flirting with me?”

The advantage of having super-speed is that, while he may not be _objectively_ smarter than other people, Tommy does think _much_ faster, and he makes a few lightning-fast calculations and says, “Ok, not the subject of discussion right now.”

“All...right. What was your second question?”

“What was _that?_ ”

Noh-Varr looks even more confused. “You just asked me that.”

“No, this is a different question. This is about your _technique,_ you creepy alien Romeo. You call that a kiss? That was a grandma kiss. You kiss like a grandma.”

“I, um...it's not an action people usually engage in on Hala. It's considered inappropriate, there are social reasons, and also I—”

Tommy makes more lightning-fast calculations, has one or two _very important revelations_ about what he wants in life, and then says, “ _This_ is how humans kiss,” and grabs the front of Noh-Varr's shirt.

Somewhere between his fingers finding Noh-Varr's hair and one of Noh-Varr's hands landing on the small of his back, he thinks, _gay panic is for morons_ , because when provided with the proper encouragement, _Noh-Varr is one hell of a kisser._ Holy shit.

When they come up for air, Noh-Varr says, “So you _were_ flirting with me?”

“Retroactively, _yes._ And before you ask, _yes,_ retroactively that _was_ a date.”


	6. Scent Markers/Lucky Charms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Wearing each others' clothes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is one of the funniest ones.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Scent Markers_ : "[Favorite](http://youtu.be/EwK0C6wltYI)," Liz Phair  
>  _Lucky Charms_ : "[I'm Too Sexy](http://youtu.be/39YUXIKrOFk)," Right Said Fred

_Scent Markers_

Teddy wakes up on top of the covers, wrapped around Billy like a coat. They're both completely dressed, and a few blue stars still drift through the room, winking out one by one. Billy is snoring gently, the little tiny snores that Teddy tells him make him sound like a kitten when he feels like being annoying. It's difficult to extract himself without waking Billy up, but he does manage it, and once he's out of bed he pads down to the kitchen and starts making eggs. The Kaplans are already up; the boys are watching cartoons in the living room, and Jeff and Rebecca smile and wave at him from behind their newspapers as he wanders past them.

“There's French toast if you want some,” Rebecca says. “I didn't want to wake you.”

Teddy sniffs and realizes that he _can_ smell French toast, and it smells _delicious._ “Thanks, Dr. Kaplan.”

“Rebecca, sweetheart. Call me Rebecca.” She pauses, and then says, “Billy hasn't looked that happy in months.”

“I know. It's been a rough time.”

“Someday you boys will need to tell us all the details.”

“Eventually.”

In the middle of making a double-sized omelette, Billy shows up, wearing one of _his_ shirts, which is about two sizes too big on him. At the sight of the French toast on the counter his eyes go sleepily wide, and from the dining room Rebecca says, “Eat some toast, Billy, you've been losing weight and it worries me.”

“Ok, Mom.” He snags plates from the cupboard and fills them both with toast before turning the widest possible set of puppy eyes on Teddy. “I hope some of that omelette is for me.”

Teddy flips the omelette over and says, “You look good in my shirt.”

Billy frowns. “Isn't that a country song?”

“You say that like I'd know. You know country music gives me hives. Yes, of _course_ some of the omelette is for you, doofus, who else do I inflict my terrible cooking on? Anyway you were already wearing a shirt, why change into one of mine?”

“I woke up and you were _gone,_ ” Billy says plaintively. “Your shirts smell like you.”

“Good thing Tommy moved out. I'm pretty sure this is about when he'd show up and start making faces at us.”

“Tommy can suck it. I like how you smell.”

“Ooh, feisty. You should wear my clothes more often.”

\--

_Lucky Charms_

Tommy wakes up and something is _wrong._ It's not _very_ wrong, but it's still noticeable. It's something about the smell of things. He doesn't figure out what it is until he gets out to the kitchen, though, and notices the same smell.

Why does he know what Noh-Varr smells like? I mean, yeah, they _kissed_ , so apparently something's going on, but that doesn't mean that...

Ok, he might have a crush. Or some kind of latent schizophrenia. That might explain why he knows what Noh-Varr smells like, and what he does with his mouth when he's amused, and that when he's thinking about something really deeply he drums on his stomach with his fingers. His very flat, muscular stomach, which is currently mostly visible, because, “Why are you wearing _my_ shirt? Where did you _get_ it from? It doesn't even fit you!”

Noh-Varr's eating raw eggs straight from the carton again, which is _so gross_ , and he sucks a bit of yolk off his finger and says, “All of my clothes are dirty, so I borrowed some of yours from your dresser. I didn't think you'd mind. My costume is self-cleaning, but it attracts attention.”

“Wait, _some_ of...you took my pants _too?_ ”

“Of course. I had to wear something.” Noh-Varr cracks another egg into his mouth.

Tommy pinches the bridge of his nose. “Oh, for...I hope you're at least wearing your own underwear.”

“I don't wear underwear.”

“Oh, good.” Tommy heads over to the cabinet to get cereal and then stops. “Wait. You don't wear underwear?”

“No. Well, not right now, and never with the uniform. It's in the laundry with my clothes. I started a washer load before you woke up.”

After last night's _very important revelations_ about his sexuality this is sort of an overload. Tommy finds himself staring at the Lucky Charms with an intensity unrivaled in the history of humankind, and then the Lucky Charms start to go _out_ of focus because he's pretty sure his eyes are slowly crossing. _Because Noh-Varr is wearing_ his _pants and no underwear._ And that is _not ok._ Or maybe it's _really ok_ , or maybe it's _new_ and _different_ and _what is going on here_ and maybe he needs to head back to the Kaplans' and have Rebecca write him out a prescription for some kind of anti-psychotic, because _clearly he has gone insane_ because _a hot alien is sitting at the kitchen table behind him, eating raw eggs and wearing his pants and not wearing underwear._

“So I think we should talk about last night.”

Definitely going insane. His voice cracks as he says, “What about last night?”

“We went on a date. You kissed me. Are we going out?”

He's half expecting the Lucky Charms leprechaun to chime in with an opinion, but instead what happens is he says, “No. Yes. Why would we be going out? We only went on one date, that doesn't mean we're going _out_ ImeanIjustfoundoutthatI _like_ guysandanyway _whyareyouwearingmypantsandnounderwear?_ ” And he's just now remembered that he's wearing pajama pants and they're really thin and if anything starts _happening_ down there (not that _anything is happening down there_ ) he's going to have to walk out of the room sideways and backwards so that Noh-Varr doesn't see.

The Lucky Charms leprechaun stares at him with a gleam of baleful amusement in its horrible beady little eyes. Noh-Varr eats another egg and says, conversationally, “I like you. I would like to be going out with you.”

Tommy's hand finally _reaches_ the cereal box, successfully covering up that hateful fucking leprechaun. “Can we talk about this at a time when you _aren't_ wearing my pants?”

“Is that a problem? I can take them off if you like.”

“No!”


	7. Captain Tightpants/A Ship Like This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Cosplaying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is especially for [Billywick](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Billywick).
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Captain Tightpants_ : [Theme from _Firefly_](http://youtu.be/D7vS4z6ngQo)  
>  _A Ship Like This_ : "[The Man They Call Jayne](http://youtu.be/8omJvCrwRdY)"

_Captain Tightpants_

“Holy shit, Kate, where did you get these costumes?”

Kate brushes hair out of her eyes, and silk falls from her wrist in a cascade like a waterfall. “Connections. You know. My sister knows some design students who needed work, so I commissioned them to do our outfits.”

“Is that why I've got the weird outfit from the pilot?” Billy adjusts the tiny tinted glasses on his nose. “Because I wasn't expecting that. Not that I don't appreciate it, it just surprised me.”

“You should have. It's the only one she and I could find that was visually distinct enough to make you recognizable.” She's searching the crowd on the steps of the Javits Convention Center, as if looking for someone.

Behind Billy's left shoulder, Tommy juggles his plastic dinosaurs and says, “And who am _I_ , again?”

In unison, Teddy and Billy say, “You're Wash.”

And Noh-Varr says, “You're the pilot. Kate, what are you looking for?”

She flaps a hand at him. “I invited someone. And _there_ he is.” She rises on her toes and waves over the crowds. “Over here!”

Whoever she's hailing works their way through the crowd, and when they've gotten close enough Billy says, “Hey, Eli!” and Teddy says, “Holy shit, Eli, you came as the _Operative?_ ”

Eli shrugs as Kate is giving him a fairly chaste hug. “I like the Operative. He's got ideals. Also? Sword.”

Teddy says, mock-warily, “You just stay away from my nerve clusters.”

“Hey, I don't want Billy to kill me. Not going anyway _near_ your nerve clusters. So are we doing this or what?”

As they walk into the convention center and head for the registration tables, Billy falls into step next to Kate and says, “Don't think you get to kiss Teddy just because you came as Inara.”

Kate punches him lightly in the arm, laughing. “What makes you think I'd _want_ to?”

“Are you saying he _isn't_ the hottest person at this convention? Seriously. Karl Urban is here and Teddy is _still_ the hottest.”

Just as Kate starts to object, Teddy flicks his coat out of the way to adjust the back of his suspenders, and her voice dies in her throat. After a moment she says, “Ok, yeah, I see your point. I hadn't realized _how_ tight those pants were.”

Once they actually get into New York Comic Con they split, making plans to meet up later to grab some lunch and see a Classic Who screening. Billy and Teddy make straight for the show floor, stopping once or twice along the way to pose for photos. Through the crowd they can see that Kate and Eli are walking through what seems to be a gauntlet of camera flashes. Tommy and Noh-Varr have both disappeared, probably together, because for the past couple of weeks they've been weirdly inseparable.

A worrying thought occurs to Billy, and he tugs on Teddy's sleeve. “Noh-Varr's got the safety set on that thing of his, right?”

“He's got something like five on there. Totally locked down. I made him show me. The hat looks _great_ on him, don't you think?” Teddy stands on his toes to get a good look at the signs on the big company booths. “Ooh, Top Cow.”

“Top Cow? _Really?_ ”

“Hey, if you love me, you'll have to learn to live with Witchblade. It's like Cheetos. _So_ bad, and yet so _good._ ”

On their way over to the Top Cow booth they get stopped again for a photo, and when the photographer—a fourteen-year-old in a _Revolutionary Girl Utena_ costume—has left, Billy says, “Hey, hang on a second,” and grabs Teddy by the his suspenders, pulling him down for a kiss.

Teddy blinks. “What was that?”

“Ok, yeah, I'm revoking your belt privileges.”

_“What?”_

Billy runs his fingers down Teddy's suspenders, grinning. “These things are just _way_ too convenient. When we get home we're throwing out all your belts and getting you four more sets of these. And three more pairs of those pants.”

“You like them?”

“You look _very_ good. I always wanted my very own Captain Tightpants.”

Teddy smiles. “Well, were we not in the middle of the show floor, I would take you in a manly fashion.”

“That's not your line, that's Tommy's.” Billy thinks about it for a moment, though, and then starts heading off the show floor, towing Teddy by his suspenders. “However, I _would_ like to take a few minutes to, um, appreciate your costume privately.”

It takes them a few minutes to find a relatively secluded corner, though, and when they _do_ locate one it's already _occupied_ , and they have to hurry to get away before the two people using it can notice them. Once they're out of earshot, Teddy turns to Billy and says, “Um, ok, so I might be crazy but did I just see, was that...?”

“Tommy.” Billy squeaks as he says it. His brain is _trying_ to process what it just saw, and it isn't doing very well. “And Noh-Varr.”

“Yeah. Um. What?”

\--

_A Ship Like This_

As soon as the others are off doing whatever you do at one of these things, Noh-Varr hauls Tommy into a secluded corner, leans in close to his ear, and purrs, “I like that shirt on you.”

“See,” Tommy says, a little breathlessly because this kind of proximity is making it difficult for him to focus, “this is how people can tell you're not from Earth, because this shirt is _hideous._ ” He picks at one brightly floral sleeve. “This is a _Hawaiian shirt._ The only real people who dress like this are surfers, tourists, or incredibly high.”

“I like the colors. I want to lay you out on it and see them reflect off your skin.”

 _That_ acts like a hammer on one of the many cracks in Tommy's ability to concentrate. He blinks. He—Tommy makes a _stupid_ noise. That's the only way he can think of it. It's a stupid noise.

Yes, he is attracted to Noh-Varr. _Yes,_ he knows that Noh-Varr is attracted to him. Apart from that first kiss, though, and a few more after that, things have pretty much remained at status quo for the past two weeks, because Tommy's still getting used to this whole _liking guys_ thing. Now, though, it's been confirmed like _whoa_ because, “Ok, you can't just _say_ things like that. Not in _public,_ anyway.”

“We're not in public. Nobody can see us here.”

“Yeah, but we're still in a—ok, not the time for this discussion.” Tommy shifts awkwardly, Somehow he's ended up with his back against the wall and Noh-Varr's arms penning him in. He looks down, which is a mistake, because apparently Noh-Varr is the only person on the planet who can make a pair of loose cargo pants and a ridiculous t-shirt—what the hell are the Fighting Pixies?—look like the sexiest thing ever. So he looks back up again, and that helps, because, “Look, I can't take you seriously wearing that hat.”

“I want to kiss you.”

“Then take the hat off.”

Noh-Varr takes the stupid orange and yellow hat off. Tommy drops the plastic dinosaurs that are apparently an _essential part of his costume_ into the bag he got when they registered and puts the bag down by his feet—just in time, too, because then there's a mouth on his, and he makes another stupid noise against Noh-Varr's lips. His hands curl in the fabric of Noh-Varr's t-shirt, and there isn't much to grab, because the shirt is absurdly tight.

Once he's got his mouth back he says, breathlessly, “You're getting better at that.”

“I have a good teacher.” Noh-Varr moves his hands from the wall to Tommy's waist, his thumbs sliding under the bottom of the terrible goddamn Hawaiian shirt to rest on bare skin in a way that is _incredibly distracting._

“Yeah you do,” Tommy says, to cover up the fact that he's quivering so hard that if he doesn't concentrate he might take them both through the wall.

“You're teaching me a lot about human culture that I didn't learn when I was with the Avengers. I want to teach you something too. An exchange.”

“Oh yeah?” Noh-Varr's thumbs are stroking up and down his sides, and it tickles while _simultaneously_ being the sexiest thing Tommy's ever felt. “Like what?” _Is it some kind of weird Kree sex thing? Because I would be surprisingly cool with that._

Noh-Varr leans in close to his ear _(it's a sex thing, it's totally a sex thing)_ and says, “Would you like to learn how to fly a spaceship? You're dressed as a spaceship pilot right now.”

Oh, no, that is _so much cooler_ than a sex thing. “No shit? You'd teach me how to fly your ship?” Space is, after all, the only place where he can't run, and how cool would it be to be a spaceship pilot?

“Of course.” Noh-Varr's breath on his ear is hot. “I remember all the training protocols. Of course I'd have to modify some of them. We don't have a properly controlled environment to practice flying under high stress, but I'm sure I could figure something out.”

Tommy's eyes roll back in his head, because _he_ can definitely think of something, and now he's got this image in his head: him in the cockpit of a spaceship, dinosaurs on the dash because seriously Billy and Teddy watch that show way too much, his hands on the controls, Noh-Varr's _head_ in his _lap..._

To prevent further outbursts of stupid noises, he seals his mouth against Noh-Varr's again, and then says, “Did you learn to talk sexy about _everything ever_ in Kree school or something?”

Noh-Varr looks surprised. “Yes, actually. How did you know?”

“Oh, you—wait, really?”

“Of course. The tradecraft of the diplomatic corps of Hala is a scientifically calculated blend of negotiation, sexual allure, and overwhelming military force.” His expression is moving from surprised to amused now. “Why, is it working?”

“Whoa.” Tommy blinks dizzily. “Good diplomacy.”


	8. Possessive/Aesthetic Differences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may have my favorite opening line so far.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Possessive_ : "[Jealousy](http://youtu.be/6a_EJsdo88c)," Spoon  
>  _Aesthetic Differences_ : "[Fashion](http://youtu.be/GA27aQZCQMk)," David Bowie

_Possessive_

Billy Kaplan is going to be committing a murder _any minute now._

It's not that he woke up in a particularly murderous mood. Actually, it's pretty hard to get him riled up. He woke up, had breakfast, did some homework, and then Kate called and told them that Tommy's pet alien (who might or might not kiss him in secluded corners) needs more pants and that they're all going shopping. Shopping with Kate isn't the bad part. He _likes_ hanging out with Kate. She's his friend. That's not the murder thing. He doesn't even mind being in the Herald Square Macy's on a Saturday, although seriously, is Kate trying to kill them?

No, the problem is this salesgirl.

She's not a _bad_ salesperson, not exactly. She came over and said hello to them when they came into the section, which was nice, and she's been very helpful about finding clothes for Noh-Varr, who's treating the whole thing with a sort of happy bemusement. It's like the guy's never had friends before, and, wow, maybe he hasn't. That's so sad.

The _point_ is that this salesgirl is _hitting on his boyfriend._ She keeps giggling and tossing her hair and batting her eyelashes at him and asking him to help her get things down from the high racks. She keeps trying to get him to try things on too, and while that polo shirt did look _really good_ , it's still just... _ooh._ His hands curl into fists at his sides, and he can feel a worrying twist in his stomach that means magic might be happening whether he wants it to or not.

Finally Kate breaks off from arguing with Noh-Varr about aesthetics and shirt styles and colors that look good on him and edges over to Billy, leaning in to whisper, “Billy, are you all right?”

Billy grits his teeth. “If she 'accidentally' brushes against his arm _one more time..._ ”

“Why, Billy Kaplan.” Kate looks amused, because she has _no sympathy for anyone._ “Are you _jealous?_ ”

“I'm—maybe a little.”

“Well, I'm not too impressed with her either. Here, give me a second and then...” she thinks about it. “Do something that makes a statement. You'll know when.” Then she hurries back over to where the salesgirl is tossing her hair again and trying to get Teddy to try on yet another shirt, letting out the kind of delighted squeal that makes Billy have _Clueless_ flashbacks. “Oh, Teddy, you _have_ to try that on! It'll look _so_ good on you.”

Teddy looks startled at her sudden enthusiasm. “Um, ok, Kate, whatever you say.” He disappears into the fitting room.

Billy wants to go over and ask Kate what she think's she's doing, but Kate is too busy gossiping with the salesgirl and sounding incredibly teenage in a way that really throws him off. Kate doesn't _talk_ like that. She's the sensible one, the only one of them who's got their shit any kind of together. She doesn't talk like a thirteen-year-old at a One Direction concert. He fidgets in his chair, trying to figure out what she meant by “do something that makes a statement” and wondering why Tommy's getting four Hawaiian shirts after the shit-fit he threw about the one he had to wear for his Wash costume.

Then Teddy comes back out of the fitting room and...

That shirt looks _really_ good on him.

In fact it looks so good that the image of it completely bypasses the frontal lobe and goes straight for the hindbrain. Billy stands up without thinking about it, goes over to where Teddy's looking at himself in a mirror, and makes a statement. The statement is, “You're getting that shirt. We're going to clip the tags off it, we'll ring it up like that, you're wearing it out of the store.” He doesn't wait for Teddy to say anything in response, just grabs him by the collar (because this shirt has a collar, it's a button-down made of some dull silk in a green a little darker than Hulkling, it clings to him like it loves him and something in the weave shimmers when he moves) and...makes another statement.

When Teddy's got his mouth back he says, “So, uh...I can't really afford this shirt, Bee.”

Kate pats him on the shoulder as the salesgirl looks on in shock. “My treat. It'll be a present for Billy.”

\--

_Aesthetic Differences_

“I like the color of this one.”

“Noh-Varr—wait, Noh-Varr, we're not shopping over there.” Tommy tugs on his sleeve, frowning. “Come on, we need to keep going.”

“Why not?” Noh-Varr ignores the insistent tugging, enjoying the feeling of soft fabric flowing over his fingers. “I like the things here. They're colorful. This seems like a good section to look in.”

“We can't shop here because this is _girl's_ clothes!” Tommy's hissing through his teeth now, red rising rather attractively in his cheeks. “We're only in this section because Kate said she wasn't going out shopping without getting something for herself too!”

That doesn't make sense, and so he says, as it seems like he's often saying to Tommy, “I don't understand.”

Tommy stares at him in dumbstruck disbelief for a moment and then says, “You don't...this section has clothing for _women._ We are _men._ We shop downstairs, where the _men's_ clothes are.”

“I...” It still doesn't make sense. “I am male, yes. What does that have to do with my clothing? That would be—” The dawning realization strikes, and he straightens, eyes wide. “ _Is_ there a connection here? That would explain so _much._ ”

Tommy looks just as surprised as Noh-Varr feels. “Wait, so there _isn't_ a connection where you're from? I thought you said you had a girlfriend on your ship. She didn't wear different clothes?”

“Well, _yes,_ but that was because she outranked me. She had a different uniform. Besides, _girlfriend_ isn't really an exact translation, it's just as close as I could get. Are you sure I can't wear these?” He moves to start flipping through a rack of t-shirts with vividly colored designs on them. “I like this one. What are Transformers?”

“They're giant robots that turn into cars. Ask Teddy, he likes them, I just like the explosions. What do you mean, it's not an exact translation?”

“She was male physically.”

_“What?”_

“Males are easier to hybridize because you don't have to match the chromosomes. The whole crew was male, with some cosmetic differences from individual to individual, of course. But she behaved and identified in a way that a human would recognize as feminine. I'm still having trouble with human concepts of gender. You said I'd be a size large, right? These shirts look very small. Maybe I should take an extra-large.” He plucks several tees from the rack, draping them over his arm, and then moves on to a table of—sweaters? Yes, sweaters, soft ones with high necks that remind him of military dress jackets. Most of them are very dull, but one is in a vivid green that he approves of, so he grabs one that looks like it might be his size. “Is there a fitting room near here? I'd get some of those jeans as well, the green ones, but it doesn't look like they have a size that would fit me.”

Tommy gestures incoherently for a moment, and then his shoulders sag, and he says, “Ok, sure, I think there's a fitting room over that way. Don't be surprised if they don't let you go in, though.”

Noh-Varr nods and starts to head for the fitting room, but then he's intercepted by Kate, who has a carrier bag of designer jeans and an unamused expression on her face. She looks at the clothes he's carrying and says, “No.”

Noh-Varr makes a face. Is it human nature to constantly argue about pointless things? He _knows_ it's childish, he _knows_ he probably sounds like he's whining, but he says, “Why _not?_ ”

She plucks the sweater from his grip and holds it up by the collar. “Turtleneck? Not for you. I didn't bring you here so you could come out looking like a coffee shop hipster.”

“But I—what? I like coffee.”

“V-neck. Definitely v-neck.” She moves over to a table next to the one he'd picked his from and grabs another sweater in a similar green. “This one. Go try it on.”

Behind him, Tommy is saying, “ _What?_ Kate, I mean, how could you, why are you, _what?_ Don't _encourage_ him!”

“Tommy. Hush.” She pushes Noh-Varr towards the fitting room, and he goes, pleasantly surprised. “Fashion is happening.”

Billy and Teddy arrive just as he emerges from the fitting room, and they stop and blink as he frowns down at his arms. “The sleeves are too short.”

“That's a three-quarter sleeve, it's supposed to fit like that.” Kate pats him on the arm, smiling approvingly. “It looks good on you. You want it?”

“I do, please.”

“Did the t-shirts fit?”

“Very nicely.”

“Good. Go change, we'll ring them up downstairs in the men's department when we go pay for the things we put on hold.”

Behind her, he sees Teddy lean down and mutter to Tommy, “What t-shirts?”

Tommy has his face buried in his hands. “Transformers. She-Ra. The Beatles. A penguin with headphones.”

“Wait, there are Transformers t-shirts around here?” Teddy looks thrilled. “That's _great._ Do you think they have my size?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE: This chapter has [art](http://archiveofourown.org/works/677166)! Check out Zethsaire's lovely drawing of Tommy and Noh-Varr in their new clothes!


	9. Good Company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Hanging out with friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a joint entry, a single story for all four of them, because they're all friends, right? They hang out ^_^
> 
> Your soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Good Company_ : "[You're My Best Friend](http://youtu.be/c2JSUXaY-tw)," Queen

_Good Company_

Kate eats a mozarella stick and says, thoughtfully, “You know, at the rate that you guys are pairing off, I'm going to be the only straight one left on the team.”

Tommy chokes on his soda. “ _What?_ Who's pairing off? _I'm_ not pairing off, do you see me pairing off with anyone?”

She raises an eyebrow. “So _nothing's_ going on with you and Noh-Varr? You just _decided_ all of a sudden that you love Hawaiian shirts?”

Soda's coming out of Tommy's nose, and Billy passes him a napkin while Teddy's saying, “Also, _seriously_ , Kate. The only straight one left on the team? It's not a competition.”

“I know that. Don't be ridiculous. But I'm seriously considering designing us a team logo, and I need to figure out if it should have a rainbow in it somewhere.”

Billy buries his face in his hands. “Oh my _god,_ Kate...”

“What? It'll be good PR. We'll film a PSA for It Gets Better.” She sucks a crumb of breading off the tip of one finger and then laughs unexpectedly. “Sorry, it's just nice that we're all doing something together outside. That's not, y'know, kicking something's ass. I'm feeling a little silly. Also, has Noh-Varr been in the bathroom for _years_ or is it just me?”

Tommy dabs at the soda on his nose and says, croakily, “He probably got distracted by something.”

“Well, good, that gives me the opportunity to ask about what really _is_ going on with you and Noh-Varr. Concerned friends want to know. He's not forcing you into anything, is he? Because if he is, I don't care if he's an invincible bug man from outer space, I will _personally_ spread his insides all over Times Square.” She lowers her sunglasses, just for dramatic emphasis, and takes a long sip of her soda.

“What makes you think there's _any—_ ”

But Billy and Teddy are looking at him too, and Billy scratches at the back of his head awkwardly and says, “Well, Teddy and I kinda saw—”

“Yeah.” Teddy looks just as awkward. “At Comic Con, we, well, we saw you guys, and you were—we wanted to make sure he wasn't hurting you. Or. Or anything like that. Especially since you kind of already live together.”

“So.” Kate leans forward, and Billy and Teddy are watching as she says, “Do we need to kick his ass?”

Tommy can feel the heat rising in his face as his ears go red, and he wants to start _yelling_ at them or something, but suddenly instead of angry he's just thinking, _how is this happening? How do I suddenly have these friends who are asking me if they need to kick the ass of the_ guy _I might be going out with? Why do they give a shit? What the hell is my_ life? _How am I sitting at a table full of food with my sort-of brother and_ his _boyfriend and the girl I thought I was in love with for a while and trying to figure out how to tell them that I might be dating an_ alien _who's also a_ guy?

All he says in the end is, “No, he's not hurting me. Don't kick his ass.”

They nod, looking not quite satisfied but at least less worried, and Noh-Varr gets back and Tommy moves over so that he can sit back down. The alien grabs a chicken wing (he can't get enough of them now that he's had some, and they did order one of every appetizer), eats it whole, and says, “You're all very quiet. Have I missed something, or is this another human tradition I haven't learned yet?”

The tension goes out of the table. Billy and Teddy start talking about the comics that they want to pick up on the group's inevitable stop in at least one comic store. They lean together, Teddy's arm around his boyfriend in a way that makes Tommy's chest hurt a little, because he _doesn't_ have that, not yet. He doesn't even know what's going on in his own life.

He sighs, inaudibly he thinks, and eats an onion ring.

Then Noh-Varr, who's been watching Billy and Teddy intently, shifts and slides an arm around him, and he blinks, feeling his face go red again for a completely different reason. He goes stiff. Kate's watching _them,_ and she raises an eyebrow at him as he looks down at Noh-Varr's hand on his waist, and they're in _public,_ and he—

He makes more lightning-fast calculations _(how do other people live with going so slow?)_ and relaxes, leaning against Noh-Varr's side just a _little_ , they're not _cuddling_ , but...

It's nice.

Across the table, Billy snorts at something Teddy said and smears ketchup on his boyfriend's nose. “You are _ridiculous._ ”

Teddy responds with mustard. “I'm not ridiculous, _you're_ the ridiculous one.”

Tommy sticks out his tongue. “Oh my _god,_ you guys, if you get any sappier I'm going to go into a diabetic coma and—”

Ketchup. Noh-Varr has put ketchup on his nose. The alien smirks infuriatingly and says, “You know, red's actually not a bad color for you.”

“Yep, definitely a rainbow.” Kate looks pleased with herself. “Possibly two rainbows. One for LGBTQ pride, and another one for alien pride. If there isn't an ET pride rainbow then I'll invent one. And...” she trails off into a low whistle, taking her sunglasses off completely. “Ok, maybe three rainbows. Those are legs I could _totally_ go gay for.”

All four boys follow her line of sight to a tall Latina girl in cut-offs and an American flag t-shirt going by on the street outside the restaurant. Scratch that, she's coming _into_ the restaurant and getting a table near them, and Kate says, feelingly, “I have _never_ felt less straight in my life.”

“I'm pretty sure that's your fault,” Tommy says to Billy and Teddy. “You're so sickeningly cute, you make _everyone around you_ gay.”

They glance at each other and then high-five, and Teddy says, “Score one for the homosexual agenda?” and Billy laughs so hard that soda starts coming out of _his_ nose, which is still covered in mustard.

Noh-Varr's forehead wrinkles, and he squeezes Tommy's shoulder and says, “Is this something I should be understanding right now? Because I have to say, this part of the discussion has me _completely_ confused.”

“What _I'm_ saying is that I never even _thought_ about going out with a guy before I starting hanging out with those two dweebs, and now they've got _Kate_ ogling girls, which, ok, super hot, but—”

“We're going out now?” Noh-Varr looks—the only word Tommy can think of is _thrilled._ “I thought you said you weren't sure.”

Billy and Teddy are staring at them like they're puppies, or vintage signed comics, or something like that. Something sickeningly adorable that makes people stare and get googly eyes.

The tall girl walks past their table, heading for the bathroom, and her hand brushes the edge of it, and when she's passed on there's a business card next to Kate's plate. Kate grabs it before Billy can, and when she reads it she turns bright red. “It's her phone number. She says her name is...America? America Chavez.” Then she pauses and squints at the card, holding it closer to her face. “And that we're in danger. Ok.”

“Aaaand it's a regular Wednesday afternoon for the Young Avengers.” Billy settles back into the circle of Teddy's arm again, wiping the mustard off his nose. “My magic twin brother is also going out with an alien, we've eaten all the onion rings, our lives are in danger. Gotta love this life.”


	10. Old Enemies/New Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: With animal ears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billywick helped me figure out who got which ears! And then my Boy made an extremely silly suggestion for Noh-Varr and I loved it.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Old Enemies_ : "[Harebrained Scheme](http://youtu.be/DzudhEnAF6o)," Freezepop  
>  _New Friends_ : "[Sledgehammer](http://youtu.be/hqyc37aOqT0)," Peter Gabriel

_Old Enemies_

After lunch, they keep walking for a while, window-shopping and talking and laughing in a way that they don't often get to, because their lives are normally _ridiculous._ All their bags are a little much to deal with, though, so after some cajoling Billy rolls his eyes and mutters, _“IwanttosendthebagshomeIwanttosendthebagshomeIwanttosendthebagshome,”_ and they vanish, sent off to the lair. Free hands means that he can _hold_ Teddy's hand, too, and they all get to pretend that they're normal teenagers for just a little bit.

Then Kate's Potential Lesbian Experience, America Chavez or whatever her name is, comes diving in from above them. She collars some kid who was coming towards them, a boy in green and gold, and they start rolling in the street, a ball of fists and feet.

Billy's reaction is immediate and practiced; his eyes glow blue and he whispers, _“IwanttheYoungAvengers,”_ calling their costumes and (in Kate's case) weapons to them. He feels the familiar _whoosh_ of magic, and then he opens his eyes to—

“Oh dear,” says the boy in green and gold from where America Chavez has him pinned to the sidewalk. “Oh, my. That wasn't what I was expecting at _all._ ”

Teddy says, “Um. Bee?”

“I...” Billy stares at the side of his boyfriend's head in disbelief. “Teddy, do...do you have...big round furry ears? Like a teddy bear? Or am I hallucinating?” A fly buzzes near his head, and he swats at it with his...

...ears.

He wobbles a little at the knees. “Do _I_ have...?”

Kate rummages in her purse, because they're all still in their normal clothes, and pulls out a little compact mirror. “Look for yourself, Billy-boy.”

He looks in the mirror and sure enough, rising from the top of his head is a pair of long ears, narrow at the base, swelling out and rounding to a point at the tips. Like the March Hare.

Teddy scratches one furry bear ear, frowning. “So, uh, can you change us back?”

“Billy Kaplan,” Kate says, now inspecting herself in the mirror, “you are changing me back _right now._ Not only did you make me a _cat girl_ , which we will be _talking_ about later, these stripes are _really_ tacky.”

“Lemme see if I can...” Teddy shifts into Hulkling form. The ears go with him. “Are they still...? Yeah, I think they're stuck like that. So, uh, any help here would be great, Billy.”

Near them on the sidewalk, America Chavez gives the boy in green and gold a shake and says, “Change them _back,_ Loki.”

At the sound of the name they all turn, startled, and peer down at the boy on the ground. Tommy's grown long white rabbit ears, and his nose is _actually_ twitching. “Did you just say Loki? Is that Loki? I thought he was super old, he looks younger than me.”

“Both, actually!” Loki pulls an arm free and waves to them cheerfully. “It's all terribly complicated. Anyway I can't fix this, it's all Wiccan's fault.” He peers at them for a moment. “But I _think_ it's going to wear off after a bit. Hopefully. In the meantime I'm sure Miss America will take care of you. Good-bye, everyone!” He pauses. “I say, Miss A, I think the stripey one likes you!” Then he mutters something vaguely Nordic-sounding and vanishes in a flash of green light, with a buzz like a degaussing computer monitor.

America Chavez curses under her breath in Spanish and gets to her feet, brushing herself off. She fixes Billy with a steely glare that has Teddy moving in front of him, his frown and green skin vaguely ridiculous when combined with the round ears rising from the side of his head. “ _Can_ you fix it?”

Billy shrugs, swatting away another fly with his ear. “I'm not sure. I don't know what I _did._ ”

She huffs. “Well, then, I suppose you'll just have to trust the little shit and hope that it wears off. I'm Miss America.”

Teddy straightens up, startled. “Of the _Teen Brigade?_ I thought you were a _myth!_ ” His bear ears _twitch_ , and Billy stifles a laugh. “It's really great to meet you! I'm Teddy.”

“Oh my _god_ you're such a fanboy.” Billy leans forward, his forehead thudding into the middle of his boyfriend's back.

He flaps an ear, and Teddy makes an odd sort of _snerk_ noise. “Bee, uh, don't, don't do that, that really tickles.”

It tickles?

Well, at least Billy can get _some_ fun out of this whole absurd situation. Tiny Lokis, mythical superheroes with nice legs...he flaps his ear again. “What, this? This tickles?”

“No, stop!”

Miss America looks over at Kate, Tommy, and Noh-Varr, her face expressionless. “They always like this?”

Tommy sighs. “Yeah, pretty much. It's sickening, isn't it?”

\--

_New Friends_

Tommy stares at them, fascinated. “They don't even look _real._ They look like special effects from the Fifties. Do they feel like metal?” He reaches for one of them, and Noh-Varr swats his hand away. “Hey!”

“They _itch,_ ” Noh-Varr says plaintively. The long metal antennae jutting from his temples droop sadly. “I had to deal with a _lot_ of strange things in the diplomatic corps, but never anything like this.”

“Well, at least you're not a fluffy bunny.” Tommy flaps one of the long white rabbit ears growing from his head. “I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive him for this.”

“No? I think it's cute.”

“See, and that's the _problem._ I'm not _cute,_ I'm _badass._ ”

Kate looks over her shoulder from where she's talking to Miss America—and wow, those legs, it's good to know that he can still appreciate girls even though he's going out with a guy—long enough to say, “You're cute, Tommy. Live with it.”

He opens his mouth to argue with her and—Noh-Varr starts scratching behind his ears. And it feels really nice. He tries to get annoyed, but instead he just makes a sort of 'hmm'ing noise and starts tapping his foot on the ground. His eyes slide closed.

Nearby he hears Teddy say, “Oh, wow, that _is_ pretty cute. Hey, Billy, you think if I scratched _your_ ears you'd—”

“Ok, _no._ ” Tommy regains his ability to focus long enough to duck out from under Noh-Varr's hand and stand a safe distance away from him. “I'm not _cute._ I'm not a _bunny._ I am in every way manly and hardcore.”

“Tommy, in the past you've also tried to say that you didn't want to be a superhero, that you didn't have feelings of any kind, and that you were...” Billy frowns thoughtfully. By now they've all stopped on the sidewalk. “I think you said you were a 'Halo god'? And you definitely said once that you didn't like Transformers, but I saw a Starscream action figure in your room. I think you're allowed to be cute. It's not like _we're_ going to make fun of you.”

“I might make fun of you,” Teddy says unhelpfully. “But that's because we're friends.”

“You know we all love you. You don't have to prove anything to us.” Kate's watching him closely, and then she says, “Noh-Varr, could you pick him up or something before he freaks out and runs away?”

Tommy sputters in outrage as Noh-Varr picks him up and settles him over one _(warm, broad, pleasantly muscular)_ shoulder. “What about this Miss America chick? She's new! I don't know her yet! Noh-Varr, if you don't put me down I'll—” more ear scratching. “Mm. Yeah, ok, never mind. I can't win here.”

“If winning means not having friends,” Noh-Varr says cheerfully, “I don't see why you'd want to. I'm enjoying the experience myself. It's very—oh, that _does_ feel nice. Could you get the left one, please?” because Tommy's twisted around to scratch at the base of the ridiculous antennae he grew. Turnabout is fair play, right?

They start moving again, the others smiling in a frustratingly indulgent way as Tommy and Noh-Varr continue to scratch each others' ears, and as they near the lair, Kate says, “ _Anyway._ Clearly Miss America here is just a Young Avenger who doesn't _know_ she's a Young Avenger yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we can all agree that Kate's Potential Lesbian Experience would be a great band name, right?


	11. Teddy Bear/Fluffy Bunny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Wearing kigurumis (animal/mascot costumes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a fair warning for everyone, today is pretty tame, but tomorrow the rating's going to be spiking significantly. ^_~
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Teddy Bear_ : "[The Teddy Bear's Picnic](http://youtu.be/dZANKFxrcKU)," Henry Hall and His Orchestra  
>  _Fluffy Bunny_ : "[White Rabbit](http://youtu.be/9HmJQyS8QVw)," Jefferson Airplane

_Teddy Bear_

The miniature Loki shows up again just as they're getting to the lair, and Miss America is on him in a flash and a roar. The others are startled, ready to fight, and Billy figures, _giving it another shot couldn't hurt._ So he takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes, and whispers, _“IwanttheYoungAvengers.”_

_Whoosh._

“God _dammit,_ Billy!”

Mini-Loki's voice says, “I think something's gone wrong.”

Miss America responds with, “What did you _do_ to him?”

Billy opens his eyes and...stifles a snicker. The others glare at him, and he sniffs hard, blinking away tears of laughter. “I'm sorry, guys, I don't know what's going on with me, but you have to admit that it's a little funny.”

Kate, who's now sporting a full-body tiger _costume_ , has her arms folded over her chest and is tapping her foot irritably. “Kaplan, you better have a damn good explanation for this.”

He shrugs, and the feeling around his shoulders makes him look down. He's also in a costume. In fact he's dressed as the March Hare, and when he moves his head he realizes that he's even got a full-head mask on. He pulls it off, and the hare ears that he's _still_ sporting spring free. “I, uh...my magic seems to be slipping.”

“I suspect it's an effect of my presence.” The Loki kid waves to him, beaming. “I promise it's not deliberate. I just—Miss A, you're making it _very_ difficult for me to talk.”

Miss America rolls her eyes. She's somehow missed out on getting a costume, probably because Billy's just met her and hasn't thought of adding her to a spell. “How do they _fix_ it, Loki?”

“The costumes are costumes! Very...hip? Is that a word I can use? They just come off. Like pants, you know.” Loki turns faintly pink. “In fact I think I've seen websites of that! Pants coming off, that is, not—” he drops that line of commentary when Miss America glares at him. “Anyway I'm here to tell you that you're all in terrible danger, but I think Miss A beat me to it. Which is _also_ a website I saw. _That_ was an eye-crossing day on the Internet.”

Kate pulls off the gloves of her tiger costume and cracks her knuckles ominously. “How about Miss America and I talk to Loki a little more about this terrible danger and you boys go in and start sorting the bags.”

The life-sized teddy bear standing next to Billy raises a hand as if to argue, and then shakes its head, and from inside it Teddy's voice says, “Ok, Kate, whatever you say.”

Together the four of them—the March Hare, a teddy bear, a rabbit in a waistcoat, and a classic sci-fi spaceman in bubble helmet and silver foil—troop into the lair, and from behind them they hear Loki saying, “Ah, so, what can I assist you ladies with?”

Inside, Teddy manages to get the head of his teddy bear costume off—and he still has the ears too, so at least it's not just Billy—and says, “So. Bee. I'm a teddy bear.”

Billy has to bite back another laugh, but the long hare ears on the top of his head twitch. “It's, uh...not a bad nickname for you? You _are_ soft and cuddly.”

Over at the other end of the living room, Tommy snorts abruptly, losing his grip on the extremely complicated fastenings of Noh-Varr's big space suit. “You call him that in bed, don't you.”

There's a long and increasingly awkward silence.

“Oh. Oh god. Oh god you do. I, uh, bleach! I need bleach. For my mind.”

“Well, uh, actually I don't.” Billy struggles out of the March Hare costume and then starts helping Teddy with his. “I might start, though.”

Teddy grabs his hands and looks him squarely in the eyes. “Billy? Oh love of my life?”

Billy blinks, startled. “Um, yes, uh...Teddy, oh delight of my heart?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too?”

“But if you _ever_ call me a teddy bear in bed I'll make you sleep on the floor.”

\--

_Fluffy Bunny_

The problem, in the end, turns out to be the White Rabbit.

Billy and Teddy were somehow out of their stupid full-body animal suits in a shot, and Noh-Varr's only took a little bit of fidgeting, but somehow it's written in the book of Tommy's life that nothing can be easy, so he's stuck. It's the waistcoat that's doing it. There are all kinds of fastenings to undo, and Noh-Varr keeps getting caught in the chain of the pocket watch, and the back of the costume head gets caught on the waistcoat's collar. It is prime, grade A bullshit.

Apparently Noh-Varr thinks so too, because he's getting really annoyed, especially because he's doing all the work. Tommy can't do much more than stand there and complain. Whenever he tries to help it just makes things worse.

They manage to get the head free at least, and Teddy and Billy have come over to help figure whatever's gone wrong with the zipper in the back. Tommy just has to stand there, arms out, ears twitching with annoyance.

Noh-Varr almost gets one of the catches undone, fumbles, and mutters, quietly but audibly, “This isn't anything like how I pictured taking your clothes off would be.”

Teddy and Billy freeze. Tommy twists in the suit, teeth gritted, and says, “You know they can _hear_ you, right?”

Noh-Varr looks startled. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that out loud.”

“And if _either_ of you,” to Billy and Teddy, “if either of you say _anything_ about this I will _kill_ you. Got that?”

They both nod, clearly suppressing smiles. Or possibly smirks. Or laughter. The _bastards._

After _that_ exciting interjection of less-sanity-than-usual, they continue on with the problem of extracting Tommy from the rabbit costume with renewed vigor, just to stave off any further outburts of too-much-information. At the third zipper jam Noh-Varr starts humming something. Billy starts to laugh. Teddy doesn't laugh, but his smile gets wider.

Tommy scowls. “ _What?_ What's so funny?”

Teddy says, “Don't you _know_ this song?”

“No. What? You're all laughing at me and I don't know why. Why am I out of the loop? Why is Noh-Varr _in_ the loop?”

Noh-Varr fixes the zipper jam and says, mildly, “I know about _some_ human culture. I'm going through it decade by decade. There's just a lot of it to process.”

“But _what are you humming?_ ”

Billy finally stops laughing long enough to say, “It's 'White Rabbit.' By Jefferson Airplane. Haven't you heard it before?”

Tommy makes a face. “ _No._ Now am I going to have to wear this stupid thing all day or what?”


	12. Daring/Human Behaviour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Making out
> 
> NSFW. Contains PORN.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You, uh, you may have noticed the ratings spike. That's because this installment of _Parallel Lines_ is about seventy-five percent sex. VERY NSFW. You've been warned!
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Daring_ : "[Between Sheets](http://youtu.be/GTMxtx5fnkg)," Imogen Heap  
>  _Human Behaviour_ : "[Venus As A Boy](http://youtu.be/7Z5aPaDwAkU)," Bjork

_Daring_

The Kaplans are away upstate for the weekend, and they've taken the twins with them, which is all very well and good because it means that Billy and Teddy can monopolize the living room. They've covered the coffee table in papers—Billy hasn't flunked out of high school, not exactly, but with graduation so close and held so precariously in the balance he can't really afford to make any mistakes. Seven months of life-shattering depression doesn't really make for a shapely GPA.

They're almost done, though, and as the credits of an episode of _Transformers Prime_ roll on the television Billy hits “Save” on his laptop and cries, triumphantly, “Hah! Done!”

“And it's a photo finish, as William Kaplan gets around the track with only moments to spare!”

“Oh, _shut_ up.” Billy balls up a blank piece of scrap paper and tosses it at Teddy's head.

Teddy catches it and grins as Billy uploads his files to Dropbox and puts his laptop down on the coffee table. “I'm just teasing, Bill. Anyway, I was done an hour ago; what are we doing with the rest of the day?”

The next episode starts up in the background—thank god for autoplay. Billy shrugs. “Not sure. I feel like we should do something really momentous, y'know? Last homework assignments of high school, finished. There should be a parade.”

“Hm. Something momentous.” Teddy taps his chin, an absurd expression of consideration on his face. “Well, we could torrent some episodes of _Gravity Falls_ and have popcorn. That's an adventure, right?”

“Sounds adventurous to me. Maybe we could even have ice cream before dinner. And get a pizza topping we've never tried before.”

“Ooh, I like a man with daring.”

“That's me, you know. I'm the daring type. William Daring Kaplan, adventurer extraordinaire.”

They stare at each other intently, each daring the other one to laugh.

Billy cracks first.

Once they've calmed down he says, “ _Given_ that we were probably going to do all those things anyway, I think I deserve some other reward too.”

“We're not watching _The Sound of Music._ ”

“No, we're not. Not watching _The Sound of Music_ is _your_ reward. _I_ want kisses.”

“Oh, so _you_ get kisses and all _I_ get is not being forced to—mmph. Mm.”

The first kiss is soft and sweet and slow like the drip of honey from bottle to mug, and almost, _almost_ chaste, nothing to it but lips brushing and only the faintest suggestion that they even _have_ tongues. Maybe it's the air, though, or the empty house, or that they've both had too much soda and not enough exercise today—the first kiss doesn't end, but instead becomes another kiss, and in the middle of that kiss Teddy makes a little noise, and it's _exactly_ the right time for Billy to lick in, and their tongues tangle for a moment.

When their mouths finally come apart they're both panting. Teddy grins and says, breathlessly, “I can't make popcorn if you're on top of me.”

Billy blows a loose tendril of hair out of his face—seriously, he's _got_ to start gelling it or something. “Popcorn can wait. We're not done with rewards yet.”

“I thought this was _your_ reward. What about _mi_ —mm. Mm, ok, I guess we can mm. So is this my mmmm. Ok I'll stop ta—mmph.”

Finally, _finally_ Teddy stops trying to talk, and Billy braces his arms on the cushion on either side of his boyfriend's head so he can get a better angle on his mouth. He's no great poet, but he's pretty sure he could write entire _sonnets_ about Teddy's mouth—the shape of it, the color of his lips, the taste of his tongue. He could write an _epic_ about Teddy's mouth. _Several_ epics. Of the kind that you read in high school and then years later you read them again and say, “Oh my god, _that's_ what that means?” God, Teddy's _mouth._

Which is _his,_ it is _property of Billy Kaplan,_ and just to make sure Teddy _knows_ that, Billy bites, gently, worrying that ( _red, curved, perfect_ ) lower lip between his teeth.

Teddy makes a sound that is in _no way_ words and shifts beneath him so that their legs get tangled together. Once they've gotten straightened out Billy is straddling one of his boyfriend's legs, and Teddy rocks up against him, pressing a _really very hard to miss_ erection against his thigh as he slides his hands under Billy's shirt. He's so _warm,_ his hands are so soft and the feeling of skin on his skin draws sort of a strangled noise out of Billy's mouth, so choked with want that he can't help but silence himself against Teddy's lips.

This isn't anything refined, what they're doing, just rocking against each other with way too many layers of fabric in between until Billy works a hand in between them and undoes his jeans. Then he has to undo Teddy's as well, because Teddy can't stop touching him, fingers feather-light on his chest like he might disappear if he's handled too roughly. Billy gropes on the coffee table until his hand finds something that he will never in a million years admit is his mother's big pump-top bottle of hand lotion, and in a moment he's got his slick hand around the both of them together.

Their mouths haven't stopped touching this whole time, but even so Teddy whines against his tongue as he grabs them, back arching, and Billy loves him so much for it, loves him for being the one who always falls apart when it comes down to this, to the smooth slide of skin on skin as they move together.

It's incredibly teenage, thinks an improbably detached part of Billy's mind. They've got the house to themselves and they could do anything, but here they are making out on the couch with the television on in the background and their homework spread out on the table. He makes a noise himself at the feeling of Teddy's nails dragging down his back and nothing in the world could be better. There is nothing more that he could ever want, as long as he can always have this.

He squeezes and strokes in the way he knows that Teddy likes best and Teddy arches and comes on his hand, not that Billy himself is very far behind, moaning into Teddy's mouth as he spills on his stomach. Then they collapse together, happily mindless.

After a moment Teddy glances over at the television and says, drowsily, “Oh, hey. It's Knockout. I love that guy.”

Billy snorts and punches him lightly in the shoulder with his clean hand. “ _That's_ all you can say? 'Hey, look, it's my favorite Transformer'?”

“He's not my favorite, Hot Rod is my mmph. Sorry? I love you? I pledge to you my undying love and devotion and we should get some Kleenex before this all dries and we start sticking together?”

“See,” says Billy as he reaches for the tissues, “this is why we're getting married. You make me look sane by comparison. We should start that torrent and go make some popcorn.”

\--

_Human Behaviour_

They're in Noh-Varr's room, sitting on the bed and playing games on the television that Noh-Varr picked up somewhere, when Tommy says, “So why don't Kree kiss?”

“There are a few reasons.” Noh-Varr misses a shot, curses, and shoots again. “Mainly it's because of the genophage.”

Tommy pauses. “You don't kiss because of _Mass Effect?_ ”

“It was a disease. It spread a number of ways, but most easily through contact with saliva. It rendered two-thirds of the populace infertile. That's why they hybridize people like me, now. Anyway, even after they successfully eliminated the genophage, nobody was very comfortable with oral contact of any kind. There are other reasons for me, of course. I _am_ nanoactive. I control the nanobots, of course, but it's a courtesy thing. Nobody wants to start hallucinating unexpectedly. Humans seem very enthusiastic about touching each other with their mouths, though.”

“ _Oh_ yeah. Speaking of which...” Tommy pauses the game and muffles Noh-Varr's brief protest by going straight for the lips.

The controllers end up on the floor, and for a few minutes it's all hands and tongues and they're both in t-shirts and sleep pants, which is starting to feel like _way too much clothing right now_ , and that's not even somewhere they've _gotten_ to yet, the no-clothing thing.

Then he somehow manages to properly process what Noh-Varr said to him, and he pulls back and says, “Wait, _all_ oral contact?”

“Yes. Why?”

“So you've never...?” Tommy gestures to his groin awkwardly.

Noh-Varr frowns. “Never what?”

Tommy takes a moment to process the fact that he's apparently going out with a guy who not only has never _gotten_ a blow job, he's never _heard_ of one. How deprived is that? Not that Tommy's gotten more than two himself, but they were pretty awesome, and if he's actually doing this, actually going out with a guy, then he might as well learn how to... “Ok. Pants off.”

Noh-Varr blinks, and for a moment his eyes are such a perfect crystalline blue that Tommy thinks he could drown in them, or maybe _fly_ in them. “I'm sorry?”

“Take your pants off, we're learning new things today.”

“About what?” Noh-Varr says, even as he's wrestling off his pajama pants, under which he is of _course_ not wearing any underwear.

“Human behavior.” Tommy crawls backwards down the bed so he can take his first, only somewhat critical look at what another guy's dick looks like up close. It's...well, it's not that much different from his, actually, a dick's a dick and it's not like he's some kind of porn star, but it's...this is a new thing.

“Human...sexual behavior?” He looks up, and Noh-Varr has propped himself up on his elbows and is staring at him with eyes now dark with arousal. The alien says, roughly, “Tommy, you know that I'm always happy to learn new— _nnnngh_ ,” as Tommy wraps his hand around the base of Noh-Varr's cock and goes down.

 _Ok, so this is different._ It's nothing like going down on a girl, which he's done once or twice—for one, the smell is _completely_ different, still good but in a _different_ way. He runs his tongue up the vein, and the noise that Noh-Varr makes is _actually_ inhuman, a groan so low-pitched that Tommy can feel it shaking the bed and getting into his bones. He licks again, and gets a slightly different low groan, and thinks, _you know, I can see why people like doing this._ It's a workout for his jaw, though.

“Tommy Shepherd,” Noh-Varr says breathlessly. “This is something humans _do?_ ”

“Mm-hm.” At the hum Noh-Varr jolts, and Tommy lifts his head with a slow suck. “You really _haven't_ done this? I thought you said you'd had a human girlfriend.”

“Yes, but we didn't...I found my initial experience with human sexual activity somewhat offputting, so Annie and I agreed that we would wait until I felt more...comfortable with things.”

“Ok, how could you find sex _offputting?_ ”

He shudders. “I don't want to go into it.” A pause, and then, “What you were just doing was _very_ pleasant, though. Are you going to keep going?”

Tommy grins. “Ask nicely.”

Noh-Varr stares at him for a moment with heavy-lidded eyes and then says something at length in a liquid, sliding language that must be Kree, and in a tone that makes Tommy shiver.

“Ok, I don't know what you just said, but I heard my name in there, so I'm assuming it meant please keep sucking my dick.” Tommy smirks and runs his tongue around the flare where the head of Noh-Varr's cock meets the shaft and then swallows him again.

The first girl Tommy ever got anywhere interesting with always came like an earthquake, tensing and tensing and tensing until suddenly all the tension release in a series of small back-arching jerks, a cascade of gasps like aftershocks as she squeezed around his fingers. Noh-Varr's different; Noh-Varr comes like a tsunami, both in terms of the really juvenile analogy part of Tommy's brain wants to make about the rush of come into his mouth and because it's like a sudden crash. He makes a sound that builds to a crescendo and puts his hand through the wall next to the bed and comes so hard that _Tommy_ sees stars.

And...colors.

And... _wait, didn't he say something about making people—_

_Whoa._

Tommy swallows convulsively and blinks as the room starts to sort of melt, and then Noh-Varr's kissing him and pulling _his_ pajama pants down because he's learned something new and it's time to share that shit with the _class,_ right? And his mouth is hot and it feels _so_ good and Tommy is definitely seeing some _stuff_ right now, and most of that stuff is Noh-Varr, or plural, _Noh-Varrs._ He looks over to one side and sees Noh-Varr staring at him from that first day when they saved him from AIM. He looks up and Noh-Varr is sliding a hand up under his shirt at that stupid convention Billy and Teddy made them go to. He looks down and Noh-Varr looks up from where he's mouthing at the head of Tommy's cock and his eyes are _so blue that Tommy could cry if he ever cried about anything._

He goes stiff, and then he goes limp as he comes down Noh-Varr's throat, and when Noh-Varr swallows _around_ him he cries out, and his own voice reverberates in his ears and explodes into lights and colors in front of his face.

Noh-Varr pulls Tommy up to lie on top of his chest. “I _like_ learning new things with you, Tommy.”

Tommy nods, fascinated by the contrail that the movement of his head leaves in the air. “Yeah, totally...learning...”

“I...your eyes are unfocused. Are you all right?” Noh-Varr peers at him for a moment and then says, “ _Oh._ Are...are you hallucinating?”

Tommy nods again, very very slowly. “ _Yeah._ It's pretty cool.”

“Oh. That might...be a problem with doing this again.”

“No, no, shut up, we're _totally_ doing this again.”


	13. Cherry/Unnatural Flavors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Eating ice cream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Cherry_ : "[Milkshake](http://youtu.be/pGL2rytTraA)," Kelis  
>  _Unnatural Flavors_ : "[Sugar Sugar](http://youtu.be/h9nE2spOw_o)," the Archies

_Cherry_

After everything their lives have become, graduating from high school feels less momentous than Teddy really thinks it should. Granted, when he was younger he'd always assumed that his mother would be there, and he'll always remember the little ache in his heart of looking out over the crowd and seeing that she wasn't. But the feeling of freedom is intense.

It's not _total_ freedom. He's going to college in the fall. Billy isn't, yet—he missed all the application deadlines while he was staring out the window—but he'll get there, and in the meantime they're free to move out of the Kaplans' place and move in together, or at least into the lair, which is a decent stopgap. Kate's declared it the team's place anyway. “The Avengers have a mansion to live in,” she says. “I think we at least deserve our converted warehouse. It's not like there aren't enough rooms for us all to have some personal space. But I'm not buying you groceries, you have to get jobs or something.”

A week after graduation they have their moving-in party, complete with Miss America (Kate's new best friend and possibly girlfriend, none of them are sure) dropping by unexpectedly to help them lug boxes. Teddy and Noh-Varr get most of them in, though, while Billy unpacks with magic and Tommy and Kate stand around making unhelpful comments and arguing about nothing.

Afterward they head to a nearby diner for ice cream, and Teddy sits in the booth transfixed, his sundae slowly melting as he watches Billy drain the largest milkshake he could possibly have gotten.

 _This,_ he thinks fervently as Billy licks a bit of ice cream froth off his lips, _is the best of all possible worlds._

“So,” Kate says to him unexpectedly, snapping him out of his Billy-Kaplan-induced coma. “Any nibbles on the job front?”

“Oh, right.” He takes a bite of his ice cream. “I have an interview tomorrow at an art supply store. Part-time, but that's good, right? It'll fit with my classes when they start. And Billy's interviewing at Starbucks.”

Miss America arches an eyebrow at him. “What are you studying?”

“Illustration. Well, that's the plan, anyway.”

“My boyfriend,” Billy says, grinning, “is an _artiste._ ” He takes another sip of his milkshake. “I don't know what I'm going to major in yet. I guess I've got time to figure it out, though, since I still have to get applications out.”

Tommy sticks out his tongue. “At least you're not an official dropout. Think about how hard _that_ made job hunting.”

Teddy blinks, straightening. “Yeah, how _do_ you get money?”

“Hey, I have a job.”

“Doing _what?_ ”

Tommy lifts his nose in the air. “I'm a courier. For Quick/Silver Courier Service.”

Billy looks surprised. “The all-mutant one?”

“Well, yeah, which other one would I work for? I'm Employee of the Month and I only have to work twenty hours a week for it.”

“I have trouble picturing you being Employee of the Month _anywhere._ ” Teddy's been watching his sundae out of the corner of his eye, and he reaches out and grabs Billy's wrist just as Billy lifts the maraschino cherry off the top. “You dirty _thief._ You _had_ yours already.”

“Had yours too, can't I have another?”

Miss America chokes on her spoonful of ice cream and covers a laugh, Tommy snorts into his soda, and Kate almost loses a mouthful of lava cake. Noh-Varr looks briefly confused, and he frowns, but then his eyes widen slightly as he places the slang terms being referenced. Billy simply meets Teddy's eyes, wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and takes a long slurp of milkshake.

Teddy grins, leans down, and eats the cherry.

The silence at the table is broken by a cheerful voice from the next booth saying, “So. What's going on in _this_ palace of confectionery delights?”

Miss America snarls, _“Loki.”_

Loki waves at them, beaming, and then looks over at where Teddy's hand is still on Billy's wrist. “Have I interrupted something?”

\--

_Unnatural Flavors_

“I can't _believe_ you got a rum raisin milkshake. _Nobody_ likes rum raisin.”

“ _I_ like rum raisin.” Noh-Varr watches with interest as Miss America and Kate grill the miniature Loki about chaos-eating interdimensional parasites and drains the last of his milkshake. “In fact I like most ice cream. I might get more.”

“Yeah, ok, but _don't_ get more rum raisin. I'll be sick. On you.”

“Well, what would you like? You haven't gotten anything for yourself. We could split something. A chocolate ice cream soda?”

Tommy stares at him for a moment and then says, “Did you seriously just suggest that we split an ice cream soda?”

“Or a milkshake. I can always have another milkshake, and the ones here are very large. We can get two straws, I wouldn't want to lose focus and make you hallucinate again.”

“You want us to split a milkshake. With two straws. I...” he shakes his head. “You want us to sit in this deliberately retro diner, across the table from one another, and split an ice cream soda.”

“...yes?” Noh-Varr frowns, puzzled. “Is that a problem?”

“...have you been reading the Archie comics that Kate thinks I don't know she keeps hidden in the laundry room?”

“Maybe?”

“Oh, god. What the hell is my life.” Tommy buries his face in his hands, and after a moment, his muffled voice says, “Yeah, I could go for a milkshake.”

Noh-Varr orders them a milkshake. At the other end of the table it's apparently concluded that Loki's on their side at the moment and not trying to kill them, and everyone turns to look at them just as the milkshake arrives, two long straws rising from it at precise forty-five degree angles. The waitress or someone even put two cherries on top instead of one, and as she sets it down on the table between them, Kate says, breathlessly, “You two are so cute that I might freak out.”

Tommy flips her off and takes a sip of milkshake. Noh-Varr leans in from the other side of the table and takes a sip at the same time, and Tommy glares at him.

A camera clicks.

“Ok, _who_ took that?”

Everyone points at Teddy, who quickly puts his phone away and says, “What? It was picturesque. It was sort of cute and combative at the same time.”

“I took a picture too!” Loki waves a Stark Phone in a hideous yellow-and-green sleeve. “I turned off my camera noise. I promise I won't use it to blackmail you much. I may put it on Reddit, though.”

Noh-Varr frowns and says, “What's Reddit?” and Tommy curls one hand into a fist and says, “Look, I don't _care_ if you're a Norse god, I'll—”

“So!” Billy reaches over and gently pushes Tommy's fist down. “Um. Noh-Varr, do _you_ have a job?”

“I—no.” Noh-Varr looks embarassed. “I don't actually know how to...on Hala all jobs were assigned by the Supreme Intelligence. I'm not sure how I'd go about getting one, even setting aside the questionable legality of my presence on Earth.”

Tommy takes a sip of milkshake. “He cleans the lair, though. Vacuums, does the dishes...it's pretty great.”

Kate nods slowly. “So you're our houseboy.” Before anyone can properly process that, she goes on to say, “And that means you need shorts to wear.”

“Does it?” Noh-Varr looks at the others, and Billy and Miss America both nod very, very slightly, mouths tight at the corners. “Well, if that's the custom, I _do_ have my old uniform. The pants on that were quite short.”

Tommy just has more of the milkshake and doesn't say anything, because he's seeing images in his head that aren't at all conducive to having a sane conversation in public.

Billy says, faintly, “Your old uniform had shorts. Right.”

And Kate says, “Ok, that settles it. You two lovebirds finish your milkshake, we're going back to the lair and Noh-Varr is watching _The Birdcage._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I love that for this one Billy and Teddy got the song about sex and Tommy and Noh-Varr got the cute, sweet thing.
> 
> Kid Loki is totally a Redditor.


	14. Couldn't Want Anything More/Sun Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Genderswapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was tricky, because I don't typically genderswap characters.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Couldn't Want Anything More_ : "[Nothing Wrong With You](http://youtu.be/N5lPW4jRlJ0)," the Finn Brothers  
>  _Sun Chase_ : "[Short Skirt, Long Jacket](http://youtu.be/X5KmB8Laemg)," Cake

_Couldn't Want Anything More_

“Mina, what are you—oh my god, is that _us?_ ” Dory drops down next to her girlfriend, staring at the picture that hangs in the air before them. “Are...are we _guys?_ Why are we guys?”

“I was trying something.” Mina moves over a bit to make room on the carpet. “An exercise Dr. Strange told me about, for getting my magic under control. She said if I meditated enough and focused properly I could see into other dimensions.”

“And you decided you wanted to see what we'd look like as guys?”

“You have to admit, you _do_ make a pretty hot guy.” Mina grins. “Seriously, check you out.”

“You know, if you want to see a guy me, you can always just ask.” Dory shuts her eyes for a moment, and as she speaks her voice lowers. Her shoulders get broader, her chest flattens—“It's not like it's a difficult change.”

“No! No no no! I like girl you! Girl you is sexy! I was just curious! And it was an easy thing to look for.”

The transformation stops, and Dory returns to her normal self, grinning.

The little window still hangs in the air in front of them, and they spend a few minutes watching, fascinated, as their male doubles flip through longboxes at Midtown Comics. Mina hums, lips pursed. “...I wonder if they've had the same lives as us.”

Dory shrugs. “Maybe? Guy or girl, I'm still me.”

“Guy you is pretty hot. He looks like he's a jock too. I wonder what his name is.” Mina reaches out and pulls her girlfriend close, burying her nose in chin-length blonde hair. She nips mischievously at an ear cuff, and Dory hisses. “What's the girl version of Dorothy?”

“I don't know. Theodore, maybe?”

“I like Dorothy better.” Mina's eyes glow blue for a moment, and the window disappears as she crawls into Dory's lap. “I like _you._ I like your curves...” she ran a hand along said curves just to demonstrate, “and I like how you draw, and I like how you look in your basketball uniform...”

Dory grins, pulling the elastic off Mina's ponytail so that her flyaway hair can go free. “It's always reassuring to hear that I'm wanted.”

“Of _course._ Although guy me—oh, I bet his name's _William_ or something—anyway guy me looks like he's got his shit together more than I do. I bet _he's_ going to college in the fall.”

“Hey. Hey, don't start that again. Things got dark, but we're doing all right.”

“Yeah...” Mina sniffed. “I just...I wish I could fix things. Use magic, maybe. Bring back Charlie and Jeannine, bring back your dad...”

“I don't think that'd be a good idea, baby.” Dory stroked her back, growing a bit bigger just so that she could enfold her girlfriend more completely. The idea of having her father back was _nice,_ she still had so many _questions,_ but... “That's the kind of thing that always goes wrong in stories. Besides, I've got you, right? Why would I need anyone else to be happy?”

“But I'm such a—”

“Sexy magic superhero? Who found a universe where we're guys and makes killer burritos? Who found the Scarlet Wizard and helped defeat Doctor Doom? Mina Kaplan, you are the _coolest_ girl I know.”

\--

_Sun Chase_

Today was a morning shift at the courier service, and so they've got the afternoon free and Tammy and Merree are racing.

It's really no contest; as fast as Merree is, she isn't _built_ for speed the same way Tammy is. She's built for combat, yes, but not for the endless running that Tammy so constantly desires. It's good to feel the wind in her hair, which has grown a bit overlong—she's got blood-red strands hanging in her eyes now, which was never a style she favored—but after a while she stops and sits on the ground and watches. Tammy's really something to watch, anyway. Her hair streams behind her, long and loose and white as a summer cloud, and it occurs to Merree that it's funny, that after so long she ended up with another white-haired lover.

Tammy even _reminds_ her of Noh-Varr sometimes. That vivid enthusiasm when she thinks nobody's looking, the vast appetite, the terrible hunger for love. Not that Merree doesn't feel these things herself, sometimes.

It was hard to quench her anger at first, when she lost her family. She'd painted her rage across the streets of this city in gunfire, a middle finger raised to the world that had taken them away. _Fuck you._ But she's had so much time now to see the wonders of this world that it's hard to imagine ever despising it, and chief among those wonders is Tammy, who was not _made_ into what she is, simply _born._ It's a cruel place, true, and it needs a lot of work, but she doesn't hate it anymore. Maybe it's more that she pities the Earth. It could be so much more. She could _make_ it so much more.

Integration is the issue. How to introduce Kree principles without negating this world's glories.

Absently, Merree plucks a handful of grass and clover and nibbles as she watches her girlfriend run.

Finally Tammy skids to a stop in front of her, cutting divots into the ground with her feet, and says, “I thought we talked about the whole eating-things-that-aren't-food issue.”

Merree shrugs and eats another stem of clover. “Clover is food for plenty of things. Just because it isn't food for humans doesn't mean it isn't food. And I like it, it's peppery.”

“It's just—peppery? Like, peppers peppery?” Tammy sits on the grass next to her, rubbing at her shins.

“It's the closest descriptor I can manage. Here, try one.” Merree brushes the dirt from the base of one clover and leans over, popping it into Tammy's mouth before she can protest. Her fingers brush her girlfriend's lips and linger there for a moment, gentle. “I want to teach you things too.”

For a moment Tammy stares at her, looking startled and lost, and leans into her touch.

Then she screws up her face and spits the damp clover out onto the dirt. “Takes like grass to me. Come on, roach girl, race me again. We've only got so much sunlight.”

Merree stands when Tammy tugs her up and smiles, dropping into a smooth run as her girlfriend rockets off.


	15. The Hunter/The Count

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: In a different clothing style

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I always have trouble with this prompt, because it's more of an art prompt than a writing one, and I decided that to make things interesting I'd do an AU. And I was talking to [Zethsaire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Zethsaire) and some comments were made and I accidentally Dracula.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _The Hunter_ : Paganini's [Caprice No. 24](http://youtu.be/vPcnGrie__M)  
>  _The Count_ : J.S. Bach's [Die Kunst der Fuge, Contrapunctus 1](http://youtu.be/rXkN0TKZotA)

_The Hunter_

The vampire is close. I can feel him on the air.

It seems I have been hunting this monster for a century, though it has only been a few years. At every turn the so-called Count Noh-Varr has eluded me, but now—now I am closing in. In a day's time our ship will dock in New York City, and the closer we come, the more I can sense him. His reckoning is coming.

He has powers, yes. But I have some small magics of my own. Those are growing stronger, too, for some reason that I cannot fathom.

My assistant sits at the other end of the stateroom we share, making notes on the signs that our tracking devices show. I leave all such note-taking to him; Theodore has a fine hand and a clear manner of putting things, and he ornaments his records with sketches of such exquisite beauty that they could make a man weep. The fools at the academy would not take him, blinded as they were by his heritage, and I count myself lucky to have found him instead. I could not wish for a better companion: there is none wiser, braver, or kinder than he. And he speaks passable Halavian as well, a relic of the father he never knew. _That_ would have made him a worthy assistant even _without_ his other sterling qualities.

“Good news, Professor Kaplan.” Theodore stands from his desk, and his smile lights the room far better than the oil lamps do. “If I'm reading the instruments correctly, we've gained on him significantly.”

“Yes! I can feel it!” I gesture to the porthole, feeling the magic in me tugging me toward New York City. “We'll find him this time, I'm certain of it! He can't evade us forever.”

“And when we find him, Professor, we'll be ready for him.” Theodore's hand covers mine and briefly becomes a vast paw, the nails of which click against the glass of the porthole. My fine skinchanger, my Canadian crossbreed. The men at the academy were fools, to think that he had nothing to offer them.

Then again, they did not think that _I_ had anything to offer them, either. My theories are too wild for them, my enthusiasm too great, my habits too...immoral.

“We will!” I seize his hand, and we waltz around this vast stateroom, this room which we can barely afford. Our clothes are tattered and worn as it is, our meals small, and the staff on the steamer look at us askance when we show our faces outside the room. They think me mad.

Perhaps I am mad. But I am mad in good company, the best of company. I am mad in the company of a handsome, intelligent man who is even now stopping our dance and saying, “Our dinner will be here soon, Professor. You remember what happened the last time someone walked in on us unexpectedly.”

“Oh. Oh yes.”

“The screaming, the dropped tray...”

“Such a _provincial_ attitude.” I frown, frustrated, and run a hand through my hair. “ _When_ will people realize that it's perfectly natural to—”

There is a knock at the door. I fall silent, knowing that my tendency to run on sometimes unnerves. I _do_ wish to eat dinner tonight. Theodore accepts our tray of food from the silent steward, sets it down, and locks the door before returning to me and catching me around the waist. “They'll learn someday, Professor. In the meantime...”

“In the meantime?” My skin crackles with magic, with the _nearness_ of my Questing Beast, of the vampire I have hunted so long. It is hard to concentrate.

Theodore smiles. “In the meantime, William, I ordered us a bottle of wine with dinner. And tonight we will celebrate.”

\--

_The Count_

I have courted Katherine Bishop for many months now. Her laughing eyes, her smiling face—they _taunt_ me. So far she has given me no sign of a regard greater than friendship, her invitation to this party a kind gesture and no more. She does not love me.

The realization should pain me, true, but coming at the time that it does, I find myself unmoved. This same party one month ago would have seen me at her side, vying with the other young men for a kind word, a favor that will never come. I would have lain prostrate at her feet for the honor of a single dance. I would have wept bitter tears at her rejection.

Now, I do none of those things. Not since _he_ appeared. Not since the arrival of Noh-Varr, Count Marvel, took all of New York by storm.

Many things are said of the count. Some whisper that he has the strength of ten men and once killed an assailant with his thumb. Others say that once he had a different name, and was under it banished from these shores. I have heard talk of shipwrecks, of imprisonment, of mysterious battles fought. Oh, they talk, they talk.

He is at this party. He watches me.

Only I have the truth of him.

Current popular styles favor high-collared jackets and ascots 'round the neck, and this is very well for me, for my fashionable green coat hides the marks on my neck. I must hide them. He has told me so. The coat-tails, my tailor tells me, accentuate my legs, and so none of my friends think anything of the fact that I stand tensed as if to fly away. They think it a trick of costuming, no more. My conversation is poor tonight, but I am not known to be a great conversationalist. I cannot help but to watch him.

The count wears black and white and green, and a gold star hangs at his throat, a medal of some forgotten war. He circles the room, making his greetings, charming Katherine and her father with his old-world manners and drawing the eye of every guest. _His_ eyes, however, do not leave _me,_ and I find that mine, similarly, cannot leave him. The gold star at his throat draws my gaze like a hypnotist's watch.

He moves around the room towards me, and the friends with whom I have been standing and not talking melt away as if they fear him. They _should_ fear him. I clear my throat. “Count Noh-Varr. What a pleasure it is to see you again.”

“Thomas Shepherd.” He takes my outstretched hand and inclines his head. “Dance with me, please.”

Before I can protest, he pulls me onto the dance floor, and as we step into the figure I am only able to hiss, “Your Grace, I understand that you are a _stranger_ to these shores, but in New York men do not dance with other men. People will _talk._ ”

He settles his hand on my waist, unmoved. “I find New York society petty. In my homeland it would not be a concern.” Somehow his strange accent is for a moment stronger, and his corpse-blue eyes darken.

“We are not _in_ your homeland.” Nor would I wish to be, if it produces such monsters as the one now whirling me around the dance floor. My steps falter; this is not a dance that I know well, and I have not had to follow another's lead since I was very young.

We dance, and the other guests are beginning to talk. I can _hear_ them, but their voices fade as the count leans close and whispers, “The people of this city parade their daughters before me like cattle, and I find none of them as desirable as I find you, Thomas Shepherd.”

“They'll _hear_ you—”

“They will hear nothing that I do not wish them to hear.” The gold star at his throat flashes in the gaslight, and in response there is a prickle in the marks on my throat. The marks _he_ left. He leans in towards me and breathes deep, and says, “I will come to you tonight. Wait for me.”

I cannot resist him.

I do not _want_ to.

God help me.

Tonight I will sleep with the window open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A question for people: if I wrote more of this AU, would you read it?


	16. Pre-Sanity Conversation/Puppy Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: During their morning ritual(s)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you'd like to see how the Boy and I talk when we haven't woken up all the way...the Billy and Teddy part of this is pretty much it.
> 
> Zethsaire helped me figure some of this one out. Thanks, Zeth! ^_^
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Pre-Sanity Conversation_ : "[Lazy](http://youtu.be/TnruTTqHq1k)," Freezepop  
>  _Puppy Eyes_ : "[Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go](http://youtu.be/pIgZ7gMze7A)," Wham!

_Pre-Sanity Conversation_

Technically they weren't allowed to sleep together when they were living with the Kaplans. As supportive as the Drs. Kaplan were, certain lines still could not technically be crossed, and sharing a bed was the big one. They'd gotten away with it a few times, mostly by falling asleep fully dressed reading comics, but mostly everything had to happen via clandestine hallway movements after the lights were out.

Now, though, they're not living with the Kaplans, and they found this big bed at a thrift store, and Billy can't imagine how people ever sleep in anything smaller. Nor can he imagine how anyone manages a long-distance relationship, because he doesn't think he could want anythng more than to wake up in the morning next to Teddy. Even if Teddy sleeps like an octopus and covers the _entire bed._ He grabs in his sleep, too, so even if Billy wakes up before him, that doesn't always mean he can actually get out of bed.

This morning when the alarm goes off he manages to extract himself with a minimum of fuss and checks the calendar on the wall to see when their shifts are. Afternoon both ways, which is good, because that means they've got a few hours to spend together. He briefly considers just getting back in bed, but then decides that there would be better ways for Teddy to wake up. So instead he pulls on a robe, goes downstairs, and makes breakfast.

Well. _Make_ is maybe a strong word. Toaster waffles and frozen sausage don't really count as _making_ breakfast. But it's something. He gets juice too, loads everything onto a sheet pan (because they don't actually have any trays) and creeps back upstairs.

Teddy doesn't stir until Billy's closing the door behind him, but as the latch clicks he opens one eye and mumbles, “I woke up and you weren't there.”

Billy grins and shrugs his robe back off. “I was being a good boyfriend.”

“Good boyfriends stay in bed because I need a body pillow.” Both eyes shut again, blonde hair falling in his face.

“No, good boyfriends go make breakfast and bring it to you in bed. Move over.” He climbs back in next to Teddy, balancing the tray carefully on the nightstand.

There's a long pause, and then Teddy sniffs the air. “Did you bring me waffles? In bed? What did I do to deserve bed waffles?” He rolls over onto his back, sleepily struggling upright, eyes still shut. “Oh god, you're not pregnant, are you? Is this your way of telling me you're pregnant?”

“I think I was still a guy the last time we checked. So no, not pregnant.”

“But how do we _know?_ I'm an alien. You're all...magic-y.” Teddy rubs his eyes. “Wanda had a baby with a _robot._ You could be pregnant. We don't know.”

Billy's starting to have trouble keeping the sheet pan balanced as he settles it across their laps. “How about this, weirdo, we've never had sex without a condom.”

“Oh, god, you're pregnant with some _other_ alien's baby, aren't you? You're bringing me breakfast in bed so you can tell me you've been sleeping with Noh—”

Waffle in the mouth.

“Sometimes,” Billy says contemplatively to the sausage on his fork, “I think I should just do a spell so he can't talk until he's woken up all the way. What do you think, breakfast sausage? Should I hit the mute button?” He pauses, pretending to listen. “What's that, breakfast sausage? _Really?_ Teddy, my breakfast sausage tells me you're secretly a Skrull and not to be trusted.”

Teddy snorts a laugh, finishing his waffle, and says, “I'll show _you_ a breakfast sausage,” before grabbing Billy's hair and pulling him in for a kiss.

When Billy gets his mouth back, he says, “You taste like waffles.”

“Good morning to you too. Seriously, though, what's the occasion? Have I done something good?”

“Besides existing, you mean? Not especially. I just wanted to make you breakfast. We have the morning together, and I didn't want you to get up.”

“So this is all just an excuse to keep me in bed and naked.”

“Pretty much.”

“I'm a kept man.”

“Essentially.”

“I feel so loved.”

\--

_Puppy Eyes_

The alarm clock goes off, and Tommy slaps the button and then hits the stopwatch function on his phone.

_WHOOSH._

_Outofbedclothesonteethbrushedhaircombedshoeonpocketsfilleddownstairs—_

_WHAM._

“Noh-Varr, god _dammit!_ ”

Noh-Varr blinks sleepily, rubbing at the spot on his stomach that Tommy's face just hit. “What? I was just eating breakfast. _You_ ran into _me._ ”

“I thought we talked about the whole hanging in the doorway thing! You're screwing up my time!” Tommy points accusingly at Noh-Varr's feet, which are planted firmly at the top of the door frame. The stopwatch app on his phone reads _4:24_ , which is _not_ his best time by _any_ estimation. “And also I thought you said you'd stop eating the cereal boxes along with the cereal.”

“Honestly, I can't see how you humans can eat this substance _without_ eating the cardboard as well. It has approximately the same flavor and texture.” Noh-Varr blinks again and twists upward so that Tommy can get past, carefully holding his half-eaten box of cereal out of the way. “According to the research I've done, Rice Krispies constitute some kind of pivotal human experience, but as far as I can tell they're actually just a failed attempt at creating an edible form of styrofoam.”

“Wow, you've really got your feelers in a bunch this morning.” Tommy ducks under him and starts getting Poptarts and making coffee. Billy working at the Starbucks means that now they've got an almost endless supply of fancy bagged stuff, which suits Tommy fine, because at the strength he makes it, it better taste good.

“Is that coffee? Can I have some?”

“Only if you get out of the doorway.”

“The drop ceiling won't support my weight.”

“Then sit at the table, you freak.”

After a moment Noh-Varr gets down from the doorframe and sits down at the kitchen table, continuing to munch away on his Rice-Krispies-box treat. The toaster pops, the coffee finishes percolating, and Tommy pours his alien boyfriend a cup and then takes the rest of the pot to the table with him. What's the point of caffeine if you're not going to consume it in vast quantities? They sit in semi-companionable silence for a few minutes while Tommy gets through his first two cups of coffee, and then he says, “You know, you're allowed to eat the same thing two days in a row. You don't need to eat a different cereal every day. You liked Froot Loops, remember? You could just have some Froot Loops.”

Noh-Varr gazes in distaste at what's left of his box of cereal. “I'm trying to learn new things. I can't do anything about enlightening this planet until I've learned enough about human culture to know where to start. Some days are better than others. The life of an empire-builder is difficult.”

“Wow, did you not sleep well or something? Normally you don't start talking about that empire shit unless you're in a really bad mood.” Tommy drinks another cup of coffee.

“I'd sleep better if you'd just sleep _with_ me.” Noh-Varr eats a mouthful of Rice Krispies and cardboard and then ducks his head and directs _puppy eyes_ at Tommy. “It would be nice to have company. And then you'll know when I've gotten up so you don't run into me.”

Tommy is for a moment struck dumb by the fact that Noh-Varr knows how to make puppy eyes. Where the hell would he have learned about something like that? He tries to say something about how he doesn't sleep with _anyone,_ just like he doesn't _cuddle_ or—but. The _puppy eyes._ And anyway maybe it's a little childish when he's seen the guy naked and everyone already knows that. That they're. _Together._

_God, Tommy, why are you such a moron sometimes?_

“Yeah, ok, trial run tonight.”

Noh-Varr beams at him.

Tommy rolls his eyes. “You better not hog the covers.” He glances down at his phone. “Oh shitI'mgonnabelatebyeNoh-Varrtrynottogetintrouble—”

_WHOOSH._


	17. Just Big Enough For The Two Of Us/Trying Something New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Spooning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part has Howard the Duck in it! Or at least Howard the Duck references.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Just Big Enough For The Two Of Us_ : "[Something About Us](http://youtu.be/sOS9aOIXPEk)," Daft Punk  
>  _Trying Something New_ : "[Kiss Me Idle](http://youtu.be/OgyIQfyCrDE)," Verve Pipe

_Just Big Enough For The Two Of Us_

Living with friends is great, and having jobs is tiring but it's good to have money, but at the end of a long day of making lattes for angry executives and trying to calm down panicking art students, sometimes it's good to have some time alone. After so much time acting as a team, too, they've all got signals for it. Everyone knows when you need some space. It's easy to get away.

They both had long shifts, and they ate dinner late, and now Billy's curled up on top of the covers on their improbably big bed and Teddy's sort of curled up _around_ him, not quite classic big spoon/little spoon but fairly close. The light in the corner near the closet is on, but otherwise the room is dim, filled with late-June warmth and drowsiness.

Billy shifts a bit and says, “So that woman came back today.”

“The one with no taste buds?”

“Yeah, that's the one. Four different flavor shots today. I think she might be a supervillain.”

Teddy laughs into his hair. “A supervillain? Because she orders complicated drinks?”

“She looks just like Karla Sofen and she's always trying to psyche me out to see if I'll mess up. And the name on her card is Jane Smith.”

“Oh my god you make lattes for Moonstone. That's either funny or terrifying. I don't know which.”

Billy toes his socks off and twists around again so that he's got his nose pressed against Teddy's chest. “So how was your day?”

“Something really awesome happened.” Teddy pauses. “Your, uh, your hair is kinda getting in my nose here, Bee. And my mouth.”

“I know. That was my nefarious plan.” Billy smiles into one of Teddy's pecs and pitches his voice lower, trying to sound as evil as possible. “I want to be inside you. So anyway, what's this awesome thing?”

“...Bee, you can't just _say_ things like that and then expect me to go on talking about my day like a normal person.”

“So who's normal here? Tell me about the awesome thing.”

Teddy spends a moment staring fixedly at the wall and thinking very cold thoughts before he says, “ _I met Howard the motherfucking Duck._ He came into the store.”

Billy goes stiff in his arms and says, in a low, awed tone, _“No.”_

“ _Yes._ He was picking up chalk pastels for a friend. He signed the cover of my sketchbook, which I wasn't supposed to have at the register, but _oh my god Howard the Duck._ ”

“ _No._ Really? What did he write?”

“'Get into trouble.' So at least it's something I'll be able to do. You know he actually doesn't remember running for President?”

“Somehow that doesn't surprise me. You're going to have to show me that later.”

“Yeah. Later.”

Everything goes quiet, and they just lie there some more, on top of the covers, arms around each other. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

Eventually Billy feels the need to mention it somehow. “Mm. We should call out tomorrow and just spend the entire day like this.”

“What, just spend the whole day in bed?”

“I don't see why not.”

\--

_Trying Something New_

_So this. This is...something._

Tommy is lying in a bed that's not his, because it is in fact Noh-Varr's. Noh-Varr's arms are around him, and the alien is already mostly asleep and muttering drowsily in Kree into his hair. It shouldn't be weird, right? They're dating, and he's had the guy's dick in his mouth, and somehow all of a sudden _that's_ not weird, so this shouldn't be weird either. And it's _not_ weird. It's really not.

He's honestly not sure what it is.

Is it nice?

Slowly, carefully, he turns over, not dislodging Noh-Varr's arms at all. Noh-Varr blinks slowly at him. “Tommy? Are you still awake?”

He actually has to think about what he wants to say for a moment before settling on, “Can't sleep yet.”

“Is something bothering you?”

That takes even more thought before he realizes, surprisingly, that the answer is, “No, I'm fine. I'm just...I'm not used to sharing a bed with someone.”

“'s good.” A car drives by outside, the glow of a headlight passes over Noh-Varr's face, and he grimaces. “Except for that. Lights outside. No lights. While I'm sleeping.”

Tommy stares at him in the low light and tries desperately to suppress laughter. He's so _cute._ _Do I think adults are cute now? Ok, maybe I do._ “Well, when you're emperor we'll ban driving after dark, and then nobody can wake you up.”

“Exactly. When. When I'm emperor. New empire.”

Yeah. Ok. He's cute. He's _so_ cute.

Noh-Varr's hands rub slow circles on Tommy's back until the speedster turns back over, resting against the alien and staring at the wall. Then the hands still, and lips brush the back of his head, and for a moment he's stupidly terrified of nothing that he can really determine.

What if this is forever?

What if it isn't?

Which would be worse?

“Tommy Shepherd, I'm...I am glad that you're not a duck.”

That statement is so sudden and insane and absurd that Tommy starts shaking with silent laughter, and is only saved from falling off the slightly-too-small bed by Noh-Varr's arms tightening around his midsection. “Why would I be a duck?”

“Once,” and Noh-Varr interrupts himself with a yawn, “once we found a world. Full of intelligent ducks. Dominant form of life. Three feet tall, very ill-tempered. Drove Captain Glory crazy.”

“Really. Ducks.” Tommy traces Noh-Varr's knuckles with the tip of one finger and tries to imagine what he'd look like as a duck.

“Ducks. But...” another jaw-cracking yawn, “but I'm glad. That I'm here. If I had to crash somewhere then I'm glad I crashed on a world that contains you. ...all right, now I know I've said something wrong. You've gone tense. And your heart rate is up.”

Tommy _is_ tense, and as another car passes by the window he stares fixedly at the wall while his thoughts follow a line something like _did he just say what I think he just said oh shit is he in love with me? Wait, shit, am I falling in love with him?_

_Is that why this feels so...nice?_

Nope. Tommy Shepherd doesn't fall in love.

_Maybe Tommy Shepherd's an idiot sometimes._

“No, you didn't say anything wrong. This is nice. Go to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HaHA! I was worried that I wouldn't be able to post this one on time, because my Internet is broken. Hooray for piggybacking on the neighbors! ^_^


	18. Paint/Straighten Up And Fly Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Doing something together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains unwise tattoo decisions and autopilot abuse. ^_^
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Paint_ : "[Someone Like You](http://youtu.be/V9HN34GIjLE)," Brian Vander Ark  
>  _Straighten Up And Fly Right_ : "[Satellite of Love](http://youtu.be/BrbAv5syCls)," Lou Reed

_Paint_

Billy wriggles and says, plaintively, “It _tickles._ ”

“Well, of _course_ it tickles, you lunatic. These are soft brushes.” Teddy's sitting on top of him, straddling his hips with his boyfriend's bare back as a canvas. Paint pots and brushes cover the nightstand, and the tarp over their bed is splattered and stained. “Now hold still or it'll smudge.”

“Ok.”

“And don't tense your shoulders, it makes it hard to paint.”

“Ok...”

“And don't sound like that, you were the one who thought this would be a cool idea.”

“Yes, master.”

“And don't give me ideas.”

For a few minutes he paints in silence, Billy biting his wrist to keep from laughing as the brush moves along his skin. The painting's nothing complicated, just a seascape from an old photo Teddy found in his mom's things. Somehow, though, the grainy sunset of the little Polaroid becomes something vivid and new in this unusual medium. Billy's hair above it could be the night sky, the sunburn on his shoulders from going to the pool the other day blends neatly into the pinks and oranges of the evening light. Frowning thoughtfully, Teddy dots Billy's shoulderblades with seagulls and paints waves across his lower back, and each stroke of the brush leaves behind it a little bit of ocean.

“Why my back, though?” Billy's voice is muffled; he's got his head resting on his arms now. “I thought you were going to paint on my chest.”

“If I'd started painting on your chest I would already be distracted.”

“That was kind of the point.”

“If you wanted to have sex you shouldn't have given me painting ideas when I have all these new paints to play with. Stop wiggling, I'm almost done.” He shifts down a bit so that he can fill in the last few spots above the waistband of Billy's jeans. “Ok, now hold still for a few minutes and let it dry.”

Billy groans, and because he's done painting now Teddy swats him on the leg, and the groan turns into a laugh. “Sassy.”

“You know it.”

They both wait for a few more minutes with an antsy kind of semi-patience, Billy because he wants to get up and Teddy because he's really pleased with his work and wants to see what Billy thinks. He's a little worried about the paint cracking, but when Billy's finally allowed to get up nothing crinkles too badly.

Teddy grins. “Take a look.”

Ever so carefully, Billy moves over to stand in front of the mirror at the foot of the bed and twists a bit so that he can see his reflection. His eyes go wide. “Wow. It's beautiful. I'm art.”

“You're my masterpiece.” Teddy looks around for his phone. “I need to take a picture of this.”

“Here, lemme try something.”

“Mm?”

“Magic something.” Before Teddy can say anything, Billy's eyes glow blue, and then for a moment his back does too, and he mutters, _“IwantthistolastIwantthistolastIwantthistolast.”_

When he's stopped glowing, he turns around to show Teddy what he's done and the painting on his back looks...different. The color and outer texture are the same, but beneath the raised lines of the brush strokes everything looks _smoother_ somehow. Startled, Teddy stares, and then steps forward and puts his hand on Billy's back and feels skin. Nothing but skin. “Did you make it...?”

“Semi-permanent? It won't come off until I want it to. I think.”

“You think.” Teddy still has his hand on Billy's back, and he slides it around to the front, pulling Billy back against him. “But you don't know. So you might have a tattoo now.”

Billy grins at him in the mirror. “Maybe? How does it feel to possibly be a tattoo artist?”

The painting itself is impossible to damage now, but Billy still _smells_ like paint, so instead of saying anything Teddy leans down and presses his face against the curve where neck meets shoulder and breathes deep. It's warm in the room, too, and they're both only half-dressed, and they don't have anywhere to be, and he starts thinking about Billy wearing his art everywhere. If they can make it last like this? He could paint scrollwork up the sides of Billy's legs, twist vines around his arms, paint his own name one hundred different ways across the stomach that he's got his hand on right now...he could cover Billy in art, _mine mine mine,_ cover him a dozen different ways.

Then he realizes something, and he says against the skin of Billy's throat, “That's the first time I've seen you do magic for fun in months.”

Billy lets out a long sigh, not a sad sound but a happy one. “Only for you. It felt good.”

“How good?” Teddy slides his hand down the trail of hair on Billy's stomach and thumbs at the button of his jeans. “Because I think we need to have a talk about suddenly tattoos.”

“What kind of— _oh._ Have I, did I trigger some kind of primal marking impulse or something? Do you have a tattoo fetish?”

“I have a you fetish. I'm Billy-Kaplan-sexual.” He pauses and thinks about it. “But also maybe yes.”

Billy laughs, and then his laughter cuts off in a gasp as Teddy pulls the zipper down on his jeans. “We should take the tarp off the bed.”

\--

_Straighten Up And Fly Right_

“All right. Do you remember what all the controls do or should we go over them again?”

“I got it, I got it.” Tommy sits in the pilot's chair, vibrating with anticipation. “Come _on,_ bug boy, let's _go._ ”

“Basic space travel safety is very important.” Noh-Varr perches in the copilot's seat, looking as prim as any high school driving instructor.

“Dude, you sound like my _mother._ Or, well, maybe you'd sound like my mother would have sounded if she'd ever given a shit. I remember everything you told me, can I start flying now?”

“You're more excited about this than I'd expected.”

“I'm living the dream of every normal kid from like 1965 on. I'm a goddamn astronaut. I get to fly a spaceship. Actually I think I'm also living the nerd kid dream, because I get to sleep with an alien. I've reached the pinnacle of human achievement. So let me start this thing up, I wanna go to Mars and see how many times I can run around the entire planet in an hour.”

Noh-Varr starts smiling despite himself. Tommy is leaning forward in his seat, gazing out at the starfield with something perilously close to wonder, right hand tight on the steering mechanism. Despite his transfixion with the scene, though, he looks _relaxed._ He's grinning in a way that Noh-Varr normally only sees when he's running.

“All right, then. Run your starting checks and take us out of orbit.”

Tommy lets out a howl of delight and goes blurry, running through checks and hitting switches at close to the speed of sound. The ship lurches forward and slowly, slowly begins to move away from the gravitational pull of the Earth.

“We can't go to Mars, though.”

Tommy scowls. “Why _not?_ ”

“Because.” Noh-Varr leans back in his seat, propping his feet up on an empty portion of the dashboard. “I'm not supposed to be here as it is. The kind of energy it would take to make that trip and back today would attract dangerous attention, and I'd rather not fight other Kree today. We can go a bit past the Moon, though.”

 _“Dammit.”_ But Tommy doesn't actually argue, and slowly, carefully, they fly up out of low Earth orbit and towards the moon, carefully avoiding a variety of primitive satellites and floating space trash.

They go rather faster than equivalent Earth-made vehicles, which Noh-Varr still can't help but think of as laughably childlike, and are out past the Moon in only thirty minutes. Outside Earth's orbit space is a bit clearer, though a few signs of intelligent life still linger—scraps of destroyed spaceship, bits of exploded asteroid, and other things like that. Those aren't hard to avoid; their ship has a low-level forcefield that deflects most trash. For a while Tommy maneuvers the ship in comparative silence, only speaking to ask for clarification on the rudimentary controls or to comment on particularly amusing pieces of junk.

At a certain point it becomes clear that they're not going to crash into anything, and that nobody's attacking them, and so Noh-Varr closes his eyes for a moment. This, of course, is when something heavy settles into his lap.

His eyes snap open. “Tommy, what are you doing?”

“Relax.” Tommy grins down at him. “I've got it on autopilot.”

As hands tug his collar open, Noh-Varr says, weakly, “Autopilot is for emergencies, not to steer the ship so that the pilots can engage in inappropriate activity in the cockpit.”

“Oh, come on. I'm already eighteen and I haven't ever gotten to do anything stupid but sexually adventurous in a moving vehicle. If I don't pull something like this soon I'll lose my rebellious teenager cred.”

“Well,” Noh-Varr says, catching Tommy's wrists, “I'm not a teenager, and I'd rather not crash into the moon.”

Tommy shrugs. “We won't crash. How old _are_ you?”

“Timekeeping is a bit difficult on lengthy space voyages, but I believe in human terms I'm eleven.”

“You're— _what._ You're _eleven?_ ” Tommy stares at him, frozen, and then buries his face in his hands. “Oh god, I'm a pedophile.”

“Tommy, I'm a hybrid. I was grown in a vat and decanted at a scientific facility already fully grown. I've been considered an adult by the standards of my own society since I was three. And as I recall, my estimated lifespan is somewhat upwards of one hundred and fifty years, so time isn't especially meaningful here.”

Tommy stares at him for a moment, raises his eyes to the ceiling, says, _“Aliens,”_ in a tone of bewildered weariness, and then grabs his collar again. “Ok, we'll talk about how I'm _older than you_ later. Right now I'm going to go where no man has gone before.”

Noh-Varr frowns slightly. “ _Where_ are you going to go?”

“Ok, lemme revise that, I'm going to go _down_ where no man has gone before, assuming you stop arguing with me and chill out.”

Everything's starting to get very _distracting_ now, and so the only part of Tommy's statement that Noh-Varr can really process is, “Ah, actually, I think other people have probably—”

“Sshhh. Let me have this.”


	19. Coming Out/Those Wacky Maximoffs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: In formalwear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which DCS puts everyone except Kate in a tuxedo. Because someone has to wear the dress. ^_^
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Coming Out_ : "[Puttin' On The Ritz](http://youtu.be/BAZhHXsknd8)," Fred Astaire  
>  _Those Wacky Maximoffs_ : "[Extra Savoir-Faire](http://youtu.be/E3N2yCKy6Go)," They Might Be Giants

_Coming Out_

Billy tugs at his bow tie nervously. The tuxedo is stiff and a little bit uncomfortable. It fits him properly, because Kate _bought_ it for him, which is a little weird, but he's never really worn something so formal before. Beside him, Teddy is fidgeting with the buttons on his waistcoat, and after a few minutes he finally says what they're all thinking. “Kate, why are you dragging us to this thing again?”

Kate is resplendent in white satin and scowling at her gloves. “Because I'm coming out.”

Billy blinks. “Um. Really? Uh, congratulations. So does this mean that you and Miss America are actually...?”

“What?” She looks up at him and rolls her eyes. “ _No,_ Billy, coming out into _society._ My sister's making me do this stupid cotillion, and I have to bring escorts. We're a team. Teams suffer together.”

Teddy finally stops playing with his waistcoat, only to start tugging at his cuffs. “But you need all four of us? I thought you said you only needed two.”

“Five of you. Miss A is coming too. But Tommy and Noh-Varr aren't with me, I got them for Sue. She's my sister's best friend's cousin. She's going to be meeting us with the limo.”

“Here, stop it.” Billy grabs Teddy's hands and straightens his boyfriend's collar himself. Whether or not they're being forced to go to this dance thing, he has to admit that Teddy looks pretty fantastic in a tuxedo. He fixes Teddy's cuffs, adjusts his waistcoat, straightens his tie, and then has to let go and take a step back before the teenage parts of his brain can take over and haul him straight back up to their bedroom to take both of their tuxedos off again.

Teddy smiles at him and leans forward to whisper, “You look good like this.”

“Ok, seriously, Tee, we need to stand farther apart before I try to take all your clothes off.”

“See,” says Kate behind them, “this is _exactly_ the kind of sexual tension we need to be seeing here. If I have to go to this thing, I'm at least going to do something that'll drive all the airheads cra...”

Kate trails off in the middle of the word, staring at a point behind them, and Billy and Teddy both look up, surprised. The source of the sudden silence turns out to be Miss America, entering the room, frowning down at the flower in the buttonhole of her jacket. She's _also_ wearing a tuxedo, and even as someone with _no_ sexual interest in women, Billy has to admit privately that it's a hell of a thing to see. A tux looks _completely_ different on someone with hips.

Not that he's complaining, of course, because ok, once they've gotten back from this thing, he is definitely peeling that whole suit off Teddy, layer by incredibly sexy layer.

Kate is still staring at Miss A. She looks sort of...thunderstruck. That's probably the best word for it.

Tommy comes hurrying down the stairs behind her, pulling on his jacket with an irritated expression on his face. He whistles appreciatively at Miss America, wiggles his eyebrows at Kate, and then looks at Teddy and pauses before sidling over to Billy, elbowing him, and muttering, “So sometimes I can see what you see in him.”

“Hands off my man.” Billy grins at him. “I'll cut a bitch.”

Tommy chokes off a laugh and puts him in a headlock, and Teddy turns around and blinks at them. “Is something happening that I should know about? Are you two bonding? Is this sibling bonding?”

Billy swats at Tommy's arm around his head and says, “Tommy thinks you look good in your tux.”

“I didn't say that, shut up!”

Teddy grins. “You don't look so bad yourself. You're like an albino Billy. Maybe Noh-Varr and I should swap for tonight.” Both brothers stare at him, horrified. He shrugs. “What? I'm not allowed to make the twins joke?”

They continue to stare at him for a moment, and then they glance at each other and spring apart. Tommy brushes his hands off frantically on his jacket, and Billy says, “ _No._ No you're not. You are _never_ allowed to make the twins joke.”

“Seriously.” Tommy's blurring a bit around the edges now as he fixes bits of his suit. “Never. Never ever _ever._ ”

\--

_Those Wacky Maximoffs_

Noh-Varr comes down the stairs adjusting his pyramid-shaped cufflinks and is greeted by a resounding silence. When he looks up he sees that everyone is staring at him, and he blinks. “...have I done something wrong?”

“No,” Kate says, with feeling. “No, Noh-Varr, you're doing _very_ well.”

Apparently the outfit he's been given is linked in some way to human sexual desires—at least, that's what he's smelling from the others in the room. Even Teddy is having trouble looking away, and Miss America is openly appreciative. Tommy is gazing at him open-mouthed and slowly going pink. Billy edges over to the speedster and elbows him, and Noh-Varr hears him mutter, “Have I actually congratulated you yet? Because _holy shit._ ”

Tommy's back goes stiff, and then he relaxes perceptibly and mutters back, “Well, fair's fair. Hands off or I cut you.”

“Man. We're like a sitcom.”

“What, those wacky Maximoff twins and their alien boyfriends?”

“Yeah, like that. We should form a band. Kate plays cello. We could be like the Partridge Family.”

“As if. More like the Osbornes.”

“Or ABBA.”

“Too gay.”

Noh-Varr stares at them, baffled, and then glances over at Teddy, who shrugs. “Don't ask me, I'm just here to look pretty. I don't know what they're talking about either.”

Kate's watching them all, hands clasped. She looks thrilled. “You know, I think that's the first time I've ever actually heard Tommy call you his boyfriend. This is big. I feel like we should celebrate.”

Billy and Tommy break off abruptly from where they're now arguing about who gets to play what and which of them has more leading man potential. Teddy says, “I think you're right.” Noh-Varr smiles when he realizes that she _is_ right.

Miss America starts clapping as an engine hum alerts them to a car pulling up outside. She glances over her shoulder. “That must be our limo. I've got to say, _chica,_ this team is _way_ more fun than my last one.” Then she bows, offering her arm to Kate. “Miss Bishop?”

“Miss Chavez.” Kate takes her arm, smiling. “Our car awaits.”

Now that the attention's off them, Tommy's moved over to stand beside Noh-Varr. He's still pink, and after a moment he takes a deep breath and mutters, “Iftheyallknowthenit'soksoIguessIcan—”

Noh-Varr isn't really paying attention, so it takes him completely by surprise when Tommy hooks a finger under his tie and drags him down, their mouths meeting in a kiss that is all the sweeter for being entirely unexpected. They barely touch in front of others, even when those others are _these_ others, and they've never kissed in front of _anyone._

This time everyone applauds.

Then Miss America snaps her fingers and says, “Come on, Kate. Let's take your one hundred percent gay harem and go frustrate some debutantes.”

Against Noh-Varr's lips, Tommy says, “If anyone hits on you there's going to be bloodshed. I'll punch a rich girl, I don't care.”

It's so viciously sincere that it makes Noh-Varr's heart sing. “The same is true for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god Kate. Miss A. I ship it. I ship it so hard.


	20. The Maximoff Twins And Their Alien Boyfriends Ruin The Cotillion By Dancing Only With Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Dancing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's poetry day! Listen to the music first if you're not familiar with these dances, and watch the videos to see how they're done. Then picture them being done by hot guys in tuxes! ^_^
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
> A [Viennese waltz](http://youtu.be/YcaYFLeKwJA) and an [Argentine tango](http://youtu.be/bXhQNRsH3uc).

1\. Viennese Waltz

Left again  
right again  
round and-a  
round we go  
I'd burn the  
whole world for  
one day with  
you my love

heroes are  
heroes and  
villains are  
villains but  
you are my  
lover and  
that's always  
true my love

people are  
staring they  
point and they  
grin but oh  
lover I'll  
never stop  
dancing with  
you my love

magic may  
fade and our  
powers may  
weaken but  
I would give  
everything  
just to have  
you my love

 

2\. Argentine Tango

How  
could  
I miss the way you look at me  
Could  
I ever  
ignore the way you care  
We  
move  
with grace that is inhuman and I  
think  
that I  
could fall in love with you

Love  
you  
will always be my anchor and I  
find  
I  
am longing to be true  
Dance  
with me  
And be my demon lover  
we  
will  
burn down the world together


	21. Burritos/Chowder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Cooking/baking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **If you have any parental abandonment issues, you might want to skip "Chowder."** There are feels out the ears. I almost cried while writing it.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Burritos_ : "[," the Beatles _Chowder_ : "](http://youtu.be/eCss0kZXeyE)[Little Digger](http://youtu.be/DPLrcP_BWPs)," Liz Phair

_Burritos_

Teddy Altman has to admit privately that “excellent burrito maker” never ranked high on the list of “important qualities of a potential boyfriend” that he may or may not have made one day in sixth grade on the back of a Friendly's placemat. Now that he's actually _got_ a boyfriend who makes excellent burritos, however, he can't imagine how he ever thought that _wouldn't_ be a vital part of life.

So he's standing at the island shredding lettuce and chopping tomatoes, and Billy is doing some mysterious thing with spices. _Seriously_ mysterious, because other than the burritos, Billy can't cook a damn thing. He's learning, of course, but he's also lived his entire life with two parents who not only _make_ meals, they _revel_ in them, as opposed to Teddy, who lived most of his life with a single mother who worked long hours and was cheerfully helpless in the kitchen.

But no. Somehow Billy can make these burritos.

These burritos are amazing.

Billy claims that the secret is in the spice mix that he's so mysteriously assembling. It has some kind of secret ingredient that he won't tell Teddy about. Teddy suspects that the secret ingredient may be crack. In the meantime, _he's_ finished with the vegetables, which means that it's time to start grating cheese, because Billy won't _use_ store-bought grated cheese, it all has to be fresh. Every time they shop for this meal he makes a speech about it, his one weird food-snob moment. These burrito ingredients all have to be perfect, which is also why they're using ground sirloin, and the tomatoes aren't from the store, they're weird-shaped heirloom tomatoes from some farmer's market that Teddy didn't even know existed.

Quietly he edges over and leans around Billy's shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of the spices.

“Hey!” A blue shield pops up around Billy, making it _actually_ impossible to see what he's doing at the counter. “No peeking at the secret. If you figure out how I do it you won't like it anymore.”

“It's not MSG, is it? Because I can't digest MSG.”

“You _know_ it's not MSG, you goof, if it was MSG you wouldn't ever be able to eat them.”

“Maybe. Maybe it's just that if I don't _know_ it's MSG I can eat it.”

“We don't even _own_ MSG. Is the cheese ready yet? I'm almost ready to start cooking the meat.”

“It's a magic thing, isn't it. You do magic on the burritos.”

“I've been making them since before I could do magic. Go grate cheese.”

“I grated all the cheese, there's no more cheese to grate.”

“Then warm up the tortillas and stop peeking.”

Billy doesn't drop the shield, and he puts the spices back on the rack with magic so that Teddy can't see what he took down. That's a thing, that Teddy doesn't even _know_ most of what they've got, because most of the cooking he does barely uses spices. He can make a decent burger, but most of that comes down to careful use of salt and mustard.

He squints at the spice rack as Billy starts fussing over the stove, trying to figure out what got used. Onion powder he knows, and garlic, and oregano. One or two other things he knows. But there's just _something,_ something he's never been able to capture making these himself. Maybe if he can figure out what's been opened...

“Cut that out. It's a secret.”

“But we're getting married!” Teddy edges over next to Billy's elbow again, clasping his hands under his chin. “We should share _everything._ ”

“If I tell you the secret then you might decide you don't need to get married anymore, because you'll be able to make them yourself.” Billy grins down at the skillet full of meat and swats Teddy's hand as he reaches out to taste the spice mix. “And _then_ what would I do?”

Teddy slides his arms around Billy's waist, careful not to jostle his elbow while he's turning the meat, and rests his chin on his boyfriend's shoulder. “But if I break up with you then you won't _make_ them for me anymore. They're only good when _you_ make them.”

“So you only love me for my burritos.”

“I love you for _lots_ of things.” Teddy takes a deep sniff as Billy empties spices into the pan. “ _Please_ tell me what the secret ingredient is? I'll make pancakes tomorrow!”

“Well, for _pancakes_ maybe...” Billy stirs the pan and then turns to him, smiling. “Promise not to tell anyone? Our secret?”

“Our secret.”

Billy leans forward and whispers in his ear, “It's curry powder. And if you tell anyone I'll turn you into a frog.”

\--

_Chowder_

“So what are we making again?”

“Chicken corn chowder.” Tommy swats Noh-Varr's hand away from the cutting board. “Don't eat that, it's not cooked yet. Raw chicken is bad for you.”

Noh-Varr raises both hands, backing away amiably. “I didn't know you could cook.”

“I _don't_ cook. I just make chowder. That's different.”

“I see. Is that a human thing?”

“It's a _me_ thing. I'm not some human culture ambassador all the time. Sometimes I'm just Tommy.” Tommy empties cans and cutting boards into the pot, scowling as he elbows denuded corncobs into the trash can. “My mom used to make this.”

“Wanda Maximoff? The Scarlet Witch?”

“No. My...my other mother. The other one. Mary. Hand me the chicken and then wash your hands.”

Noh-Varr passes him the chicken, frowning. “I still don't understand that, the two-mothers thing. But then I don't have a mother, so...”

“Don't bother. They suck.” Tommy's shoulders hunch as he stirs. “Only good things I ever got from mine were this chowder recipe and a heartbeat, and she's been pretty clear about regretting that second one.”

The curvature of his back is like an open wound, and Noh-Varr stares, not really knowing what to say. There...there are dishes to wash. He can wash dishes, and maybe then he'll know what to say. His diplomatic training, brief and suddenly cut off as it was, never covered comfort. He's not even sure how to manage sympathy.

After a few minutes he's finished with most of the dishes and Tommy is stepping away from the stove. “It needs to...go. For a little bit. Let's just...”

In a weirdly inspired moment, Noh-Varr just gets a can of soda out of the fridge and tosses it to him. “We can sit.”

Tommy catches the can with one hand and half-smiles at him. “That sounds good.”

Noh-Varr gets a soda for himself as well and sits down, not across from Tommy but next to him, and leans his head on Tommy's shoulder. He doesn't know how to talk about this, if it's something that they even need to talk about. For a moment he remembers Oubliette, and wonders where she is and how she's doing. _I just blew up my dad._ He hadn't really been able to say anything to her, either.

Sometimes he thinks that it might have been nice to have a parent or two, but that's un-Kree. Kree children are raised by the state, because no single Kree is sufficient for the job. Children, rare as they are, are the future of the Empire. They must be properly cared for and educated. But then he was never a child either.

After a moment he says, “Do you wish she wasn't your mother?”

Tommy takes a sip of his soda and rests his cheek on the top of Noh-Varr's head as the smell of chowder fills the kitchen. “No. Yes. Sort of. It's good chowder. She always used to smile when she made it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a cheerier note, totally try putting a little bit of curry powder in the next time you make burritos. It's killer.


	22. Freeze Tag/Pop the Whip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: In battle, side by side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'd think for a thing about superheroes this would have more fighting in it, wouldn't you? ^_^
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Freeze Tag_ : "[Jump On My Shoulders](http://youtu.be/3ldRnfP833g)," AWOL Nation  
>  _Faster_ : "[Faster](http://youtu.be/5PsbSophThk)," Manic Street Preachers

_Freeze Tag_

Billy hasn't been Asgardian for a while now, but he has to admit in the end that there's something _really_ satisfying about hitting things with lightning. _Especially_ Doombots, because they go foom so nicely, although these aren't _real_ Doombots, they're the weird knockoffs AIM's been putting out lately. They're AIMbots. AIM _had_ to attack in the middle of July, too, so it's blazingly hot outside, and he's starting to suspect that they're making AIMbots just because the beekeepers don't want to leave their little airconditioned super-science tank, or their zeppelin, which apparently Tommy and Noh-Varr are doing something about. Why do they have a zeppelin?

Teddy's at his six intermittently, diving forward at regular intervals to knock down Doombots and get pedestrians to safety. He and Miss America make a great team; she's faster than him, but smaller, so they can play off each other nicely. Watching him puts a little warm pulse in Billy's chest, another thing he hasn't felt in a while, and he gets so wrapped up in watching his boyfriend fight that an AIMbot almost grabs him.

He feels the brush of a metallic hand on his forearm and jukes to one side, startled, but before he can blow the thing up Teddy is there, barreling into it and sending it flying into another one. Then as it's trying to recover itself an arrow sprouts in one of its neck joints and then blows up. Kate. Kate's got their backs, she's got her shit together.

“What do you think they want?” Billy dodges some kind of energy blast.

“I'm pretty sure they want to dissect me. Or maybe Noh-Varr. Bee, watch out!” Teddy barrels into him, shoving him out of the way of a divebombing AIMbot.

They regain their balance together, and Billy stares down at the mess on the streets for a moment before he realizes that he really _can_ do something about this. The air around him starts to glow blue as he mutters, _“Iwantyoutostop Iwantyoutostop Iwantyoutostop,”_ and the energy goes out in a wave around him.

Like, he realizes, what he felt before they went to find Wanda, but under his control. It's good.

The AIMbots drop to the ground in one resounding crash, and the tank stops rumbling. An AIM beekeeper emerges from the top of it, swearing, and then looks up in shock as Billy and Teddy land in front of him. “What—but you're supposed to be crazy!”

Billy sighs. “Why does everyone think that?”

“Because you're kinda crazy.” Teddy grins at him. “Don't worry, I think it's cute.”

“Cute's not a word I'd use here.” A thump on the tank behind them, and they turn and it's—

It's Captain Marvel. Carol Danvers. And there are _other Avengers with her._

“Where's Noh-Varr, boys?”

Teddy moves in front of Billy a bit, spreading his wings to shield him from view, as Billy and the AIM beekeeper both say, “Oh, _shit._ ”

\--

_Pop the Whip_

They haven't practiced this. They've talked about it, but they haven't practiced it.

Tommy is _so fucking excited._

For a few minutes he just pings around the street, building up a good wind while Noh-Varr blows up AIMbots. Teddy and Miss A have the tank on lockdown, Kate's on top of a building taking potshots at robots, and Billy's flying high.

But _Tommy_ gets to kill the _zeppelin._

He catches Noh-Varr's eye and nods. Noh-Varr leaps gracefully, kicks a beekeeper in the chin, and lands on the _side_ of a building. Like Spiderman, but sexy. _Did I just think that?_

“Now!”

He charges, and Noh-Varr catches his outstretched hand and hurls him _up._ It's quite a heave. Tommy lands on the gondola of the zeppelin feeling a little nauseous and vibrates himself through the locked door. Inside, beekeepers shout at the sight of him, and he grins and flips them off. “So is this the party? Because I'm pretty sure these things went out of style in the Thirties.”

The guy at the controls looks offended. “We're trying something new, ok?”

“Dude, no offense, but this shit is _so_ last century.” He slouches on a console and it explodes. “Oh no! Was that important? I'm sorry, I just have so much _rhythm,_ I can't help but rock the house.”

Then another beekeeper looks out the window and says, “Holy shit it's Captain Marvel.”

 _“What?”_ Tommy runs over to the window, blowing up another console in the process.

It is. It's the fucking Avengers. He vibrates through the floor unthinking, blowing a last piece of equipment as he drops.

It's hard to control a fall like that, but he manages, landing knees bent in front of Noh-Varr, who has his hands up away from his guns. Billy and Teddy are flanking him, and in front of them are Spiderwoman and Carol fucking Danvers.

Once more, for good measure: _fuck._

Carol Danvers does _not_ look happy. “I think we were pretty clear about you staying away from Earth, Noh-Varr. Was there something you misunderstood?”

Noh-Varr shrugs. “I like it here. It's a good place.”

“And you kids!” She rounds on them, eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you _thinking?_ You know he's a wanted fugitive, right?”

Tommy frowns. “No, that's _my_ thing. _I'm_ the criminal. _I_ thought he was a potentially unstable superbeing who needs to be contained or destroyed.”

Billy catches on. “Hey, no, I thought that was _me._ Isn't he an illegal alien?”

“No, I'm pretty sure that's _me._ ” Teddy grins. “Hey, Noh-Varr, you're biting my style. Anyway I thought you were supposed to be the one with good hair.”

“Oh, please,” Kate says, as Miss America lands and sets her carefully down. “Clearly that's _my_ thing.”

Carol Danvers is staring at them like they've all melded into one insane superbeing which has _then_ grown an additional head. “What the hell are you kids talking about?”

Kate rolls her eyes. “First, we're not kids. Second, you can suck it.”

“ _La cucaracha guapa_ is on our team now. You had a chance.” Miss America rolls her neck and cracks her knuckles. “And anyway, _I've_ always had good luck working with people the Avengers don't like.”

Tommy's heart is thumping in his chest as he steps back so that he's standing next to Noh-Varr. Spiderwoman's just watching them, like she can't actually believe what she's seeing, and Captain Marvel just looks past Tommy and meets Noh-Varr's eyes. “Nevertheless, what we said still stands. We don't want you on Earth.”

Noh-Varr sighs. “All right. I don't want to cause any—”

“Noh-Varr, shut up.” Tommy grabs his hand as their teammates close ranks around them. “You don't actually get a say in this. You're a Young Avenger now.”

Finally, Spiderwoman peers at them and says, “Wait, are you two—”

“Yeah. Yeah we are. Wanna fight about it? Because I'll punch you.”

Noh-Varr beams at him, looking completely bewildered.

Carol Danvers stares at him helplessly for a moment and then buries her face in her hands. “You sound just like your uncle. I never had any luck arguing with him either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, first: Carol Danvers is awesome. And if you don't think so I'll fight you. But she _does_ make a really good figure of intimidating authority.
> 
> "Pop the whip" is a playground game, in which a number of children join hands and run in one direction in a line, and then change direction suddenly, thus typically sending the child at the end of the line flying.
> 
> "Don't Worry, I Think It's Cute" is the tentative title of the slice-of-life webcomic the Boy wants to do about our relationship. Which says a lot about us. Because yeah, I basically write Billy and Teddy as myself and my fiance. Gotta take inspiration from something.
> 
>  _"El cucaracha guapo"_ is Spanish for "the handsome/beautiful/sexy cockroach." Oh, Noh-Varr.


	23. On A Night In The Flaming July/White Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Arguing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...writing this chapter was _physically painful_ for me. And also kinda difficult, because it contains the most detailed description of a panic attack that I could manage without working _myself_ into one.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _On A Night In The Flaming July_ : "[Don't Let's Start](http://youtu.be/VJQnZZ-Wmao)," They Might Be Giants  
>  _White Walls_ : "[What Jail Is Like](http://youtu.be/w8-nGZS63xs)," the Afghan Whigs

_On A Night In The Flaming July_

After the fighting earlier, everyone is pretty wiped, so when the streets are clear they order some pizza and head back to the lair to crash. Even Miss America comes, and they don't even _know_ where she lives, and Kate just says she's not ready to deal with her dad tonight. Everyone is hot and sticky and irritable, and they don't talk much, just grumble their way through dinner and a rerun of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer._

When the show is over the crowd in the living room disperses with a few muttered good-nights. Billy and Teddy brush their teeth and then head to their room to change, Teddy making a brief detour to find their fan.

He gets the fan set up while Billy's getting undressed, and as he's plugging it in Billy pauses and glances out the window and sighs, and Teddy says, suddenly and reflexively, “Don't do that.”

Billy scowls and tugs his shirt off. “Don't do what?”

“Don't sigh like that. I hate hearing you sigh like that.”

“Like _what?_ I was just _breathing._ ” Billy tosses his socks into the laundry basket with a practiced motion. “You don't have to tiptoe around me all the time and freak out when I _breathe_ hard, it's not like I'm going to _break._ ”

“I'm not _freaking out_ , I just—you can't just _start_ that again!”

“Start _what_ again? Worrying about things? I worry about things! I do that! Don't _you_ ever wonder whether we're doing the right thing?”

“Yeah, maybe for all of the _two seconds_ in between getting up in the morning and stopping my first mugging of the day! How can you ever _doubt_ that we're doing the right thing?” Teddy stares at Billy, and he knows he's raised his voice now only because the fan is running, but it's hard not to be _angry._

“Maybe it's not that _easy_ for some people! I worry about shit, you _know_ I get worried, and when _Captain fucking Marvel_ shows up to _yell_ at you maybe _you_ should start worrying too!”

“Look, I just, I can't—I can't watch you _shut down_ again!”

“Then _don't!_ ”

Teddy stares at his boyfriend for a moment, and Billy stares at him, and he's pretty sure that if he says anything more right now he'll ruin everything forever, because he is _so fucking angry._ And even with the fan running it's still _so_ hot in the room, and everything is twisted up in his chest in a way that would probably sound cliché if he said it but which feels like the realest thing in the world. Breathing in the humid air just makes his lungs spasm, and finally he says, “I can't. I just can't do that again.”

“I'm not some fucking porcelain doll. I'm not going to _break._ ”

“Really? Because from where I'm standing you've done it once already, and right now I cannot _deal_ with _gluing you together!_ ”

Billy's watching him, one hand on the blinds, eyes wide. He bites his lip and says, “Fine. Right. Sure.”

“I need some air.” Teddy hasn't changed, hasn't even taken his belt off yet, so he just turns and leaves the room.

It's so _hot_ tonight.

\--

_White Walls_

The New York night is like a furnace, and Tommy Shepherd sits up in bed looking at the beautiful alien he fell asleep next to and feels like he's choking. Or maybe not choking, not precisely, but his chest is tight and there's a knot in it that feels uneasily like fear.

That isn't right. Tommy's never afraid. He doesn't get scared. He doesn't cry, he doesn't panic, and there's never any part of him that wants to run screaming from the things that he's seen and said and done. If he's afraid then there must be something wrong, and he's not sure what it is at first, but after thinking about it for a few minutes—it's hard to think fast in heat like this, he's sweating so much that his boxers are sticking to him—he realizes what the problem is.

It's Noh-Varr.

Something about Noh-Varr is making him afraid.

_The Avengers were going to take Noh-Varr away and Tommy was afraid._

That's just...that's not how shit is supposed to work. Tommy doesn't get scared, he just gets angry. In fact, he realizes, he _is_ angry. He's furious.

Noh-Varr opens his eyes sleepily and says, “Tommy? Are you still awake?”

Tommy hunches his shoulders and says, “Get out.”

That has Noh-Varr sitting up, startled, streetlights from the window making his face painfully, agonizingly beautiful as he says, “What?”

“You were so ready to leave, why don't you just go?” The words sting coming out of his mouth; it's like he's spitting razor blades. He's surprised he's not bleeding. The room has shrunk so much that he can barely breathe, pressed too close to Noh-Varr with the walls closing in and the heat of the air filling his lungs. “Save us all the trouble.”

“Tommy, I don't—”

“ _You don't understand._ Of course you fucking don't. You never understand anything.” It's too close on the bed. Tommy has to get up and pace, because maybe if he moves he can keep the walls where they are, keep the room from getting smaller. His breath is coming faster. It's hard to see.

“A lot of things still puzzle me, yes.” Noh-Varr's staring at him now, blanket tangled around his waist, brow wrinkled with bafflement. “That's why I ask people to explain them. Have I done something wrong?”

“What _haven't_ you done wrong? What gives you the right to just come here and get in our business? You're pushy, you're nosy, you don't understand _anything,_ you get in my _face_ all the time...”

“I thought you enjoyed it when I got in your face.”

“ _Shut_ up.” His chest is seizing. What the hell is happening? He's started to shake, why is he shaking? His voice is shaking too. It makes him angrier. “And _anyway,_ it's not like you're going to _stick around._ Fucking _coward._ The Avengers show up, and you're just going to turn tail and run?”

 _Now_ Noh-Varr looks angry, and isn't it fucking time? What took him so long? “I wasn't about to—”

“Weren't about to _what?_ Stick around a bunch of losers for the rest of your life? Fine. Get out. Get out of my _room,_ get out of my _house,_ get out of my _life._ ”

Noh-Varr stares at him for a moment, apparently at a loss for words, and finally settles on, “Tommy, this is _my_ room.”

 _Shit. How did I forget that I didn't fall asleep in my own room?_ But all it does is make him angrier, and so he snags an undershirt—it's one of Noh-Varr's, but what the fuck does he care?—pulls it on, and says, “Ok, then, _I'll_ go.”

Noh-Varr starts to get up. “Tommy, I—”

He stalks out, slamming the door behind him, and he's shaking so hard that it's difficult to walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Ohgodfeels._ Please don't hate me, I promise things will get better tomorrow!


	24. Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling/Never Never Never

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Making up afterwards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Ohgodfinally._ Come to this chapter for feels recovery. You might cry, but only in a good way. I'm so sorry for what I had to do yesterday. -_-
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling_ : "[Losing Your Affection](http://youtu.be/k0pOLHCdARA)," Future Bible Heroes  
>  _Never Never Never_ : "[Not Your Fault](http://youtu.be/jm9-yVdxbSs)," AWOL Nation

_Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling_

Downstairs is out. Tommy's in the kitchen, getting a soda from the fridge and looking angry, and when Teddy glances in the speedster just flips him off and turns his back. And Kate is in the living room, Kate who can wear fury like a cloak and who is never sad, Kate who's their _valkyrie,_ she's on one of the couches sobbing and Miss America is cradling her and saying, “ _H_ _alcónita,_ hey, hey, _mi corazón,_ it's not your fault, baby, it wasn't your fault.” And anyway even with fans and air conditioning running the bottom level is like a blast furnace, so Teddy goes up to the roof.

Outside it's still hot, but there's at least a little bit of a breeze. He sits on the edge, legs hanging down, and after a moment he grows out big leathery wings and hunches, because if he's going sit here like some gargoyle he might as well look like one. It's oddly satisfying, being the dramatic one for once. He never gets to be the dramatic one. He always has to be the one who's doing all right.

There's a puff of unexpectedly cold air on his cheek, and when he looks over Loki is sitting next to him on the roof ledge. The Norse god isn't wearing his normal elaborate outfit, either; he's just got on a t-shirt and jeans, and a gold band around his forehead, and he looks, suddenly, very young, younger than all of them. Teddy isn't in the mood for this, though. Sweat trails down his forehead, and he says, “Loki. What do you want?”

Loki stares out at the city, looking like he couldn't get warm if he tried. “Nothing. Not tonight.”

“Really.” He doesn't say, _That's hard to believe,_ because he knows Loki can hear it anyway.

“Really.” Loki glances at him, eyes flashing green in the moonlight, and shrugs. “I just wanted some company.”

And for a moment Teddy can believe that completely, because the other boy gets this faraway look in his eyes, and there's a brief reeling sensation of being somehow simultaneously thousands of years old and very young, and terribly, terribly lonely.

All he says is, “It's hot tonight.”

“Yes. Dreadful, isn't it?” Loki turns back to look over the city again. “In my youth I would have covered this place in ice for a moment's breath of real air. But then, I come from a colder climate.”

Then he stops talking, and they sit in the slow breeze for a few minutes saying nothing and watching cars on the street below.

“They tell me,” Loki says suddenly, “that I spent my former life spreading chaos and discord wherever I went, and that I reveled in the pain of others when it did me good. But as far as I can tell I never did nearly as much damage as what's been done out of simple human impatience, frustration, and lack of understanding.”

Teddy looks over at him, startled, and says, “Are you trying to give me _advice?_ ”

“Who would take the advice of the god of mischief?” Loki grins suddenly. “That would be like jumping off a bridge to keep up with the Joneses.”

“I...what? What does that...” And it's _good advice,_ too, if it was actually advice. He never gets to be the dramatic one because, honestly, there are some things that he's _better_ at than Billy is, and keeping himself together is one of them. Billy's not perfect, and honestly if he was it would be a little creepy. But even if he worries and Billy being depressed bothers him that's no reason to talk to him like Teddy has tonight, everything has a pace even if sometimes that pace is agonizingly slow and _shit shit shit I've been acting like a moron tonight I need to get back downstairs right now because if either of us falls asleep before this is fixed it might never be._ “Shit. Loki, thanks. You're great. Thank you.”

Now Loki's the one who looks confused. “I am? Really?”

But he's already at the roof door and heading down.

When he gets to the bedroom there's a confusing whirl of movement that mostly consists of him getting through the door and then Billy grabbing the front of his shirt, pushing him against the wall, closing the door with one foot and then saying, “Altman, I am so pissed at you right now, you wouldn't even believe it.”

Teddy winces and says, “Billy, I'm really—”

“No, _no,_ I'm _angry,_ I'm not _sad,_ this is _awesome,_ I don't think I've been this pissed off _ever._ ”

“I'm not seeing how this is a good—”

Billy kisses him, and it kind of hurts, because there's some biting involved, and then he pulls back and grins and says, “Tee, if I ever start getting depressed again please piss me off so much that I can't even be sad anymore.”

“But you're still mad at me.”

“Sort of? Mostly I'm mad at the Avengers, they're jerks, and I'm glad we got that whole fight out of the way when we could all be there to help, and I am _so pissed off_ and it feels _great_ and I _love_ you.”

Nothing about this night is not confusing. “I'm sorry I was an asshole? I love you too?”

“Good, yes, apology accepted. I'm sorry I'm such a hot mess all the time.”

“Emphasis on the _hot_ part,” which is possibly the _dumbest_ thing Teddy could have said right now, but the _actual_ heat of the night is messing with his head, and anyway Billy grins and wiggles his eyebrows, so maybe they're ok. But he's not sure, so... “Are we ok?”

“No. Yes. I love you. But I'm _mad_ at you.”

“Anything I can do to fix that besides apologizing five more times?”

Billy cocks his head to one side and then smiles and says, “You can make it up to me.”

\--

_Never, Never, Never_

Noh-Varr gets downstairs and finds Tommy sitting at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a can of soda, staring at nothing and shaking, shaking _so_ hard that Noh-Varr's afraid he'll hurt himself. At the sound of his footsteps in the doorway he sees Tommy's shoulders hunch up a bit. “What do _you_ want?”

He pulls another chair over next to Tommy and sits down. He's thought about what Tommy said, and most of it was confusing and upsetting and combative, but there's at least one thing he can actually respond to. “I would have come back, you know.”

Tommy doesn't look at him. “What.” Not a question, just a flat, dead sound.

“I wasn't running. I don't listen to the Avengers. I would have left, yes, but it was because I didn't want to get _you_ in trouble. I would have come back afterward.”

“What makes you think I'll believe—”

“Tommy.” He puts a hand on Tommy's wrist, and Tommy tries to shake it off, but not very hard. “I don't want to hurt you or to get you hurt. I want you to be safe.”

“Oh, _sure._ So it would have been for my own _good._ ” Tommy stares down at his soda can, mouth tight. “There's a classic. It's right up there with _it'll only hurt for a second_ and _we're advancing science._ Newsflash, roach boy. There's nothing the Avengers can do to me that hasn't been done before. Try being locked up and experimented on sometime.”

“I've done that, actually.”

“Yeah?” Tommy glances at him out of the corner of his eye. “Well, then. Try having your _parents_ sign off on it.”

Noh-Varr stares at him for a moment. This is a bit difficult to process; he'd known that Tommy had in the past been imprisoned, but they'd never discussed it in any detail.

“It's not like I'm _human,_ anyway, I don't have _rights,_ I don't _really_ matter. I'm just a junior Quicksilver knockoff, right? Who needs Tommy Shepherd when you have the fucking world famous Pietro Maximoff? My dad couldn't give a shit where I am, my _real_ mom's a magic lunatic, Billy and Teddy just sort of live off each other like _leeches_ , Kate has fucking _Clint Barton_ and that Miss America chick, Cassie's _dead,_ Eli _left—_ ”

The can dents, and Tommy's voice is speeding up. Noh-Varr pulls the soda away from him and grabs both of his hands. “Tommy Shepherd. _I_ need you.”

Tommy jolts. _“What?”_ It sounds like he's forcing the word out.

“Tommy, you are—” Noh-Varr pauses, fumbling for the words. He knows every word in the English language, but somehow he can't make them fit together to say what he wants to say. “You are. Ah. I. Tommy Shepherd, you are _hala_.”

There's a long pause, and then Tommy says, “I'm your planet.”

“Um. Yes?”

“Are you calling me fat or something? Are you trying to make a joke?”

“No, I—look. I'm _from_ Hala, yes, because that's where all Kree are from. I was grown there. But my home was the Marvel. My family was the crew. And then we were shot down, and I had no more home and no more family. And, and hala isn't just the name of the planet, it's a word, it means _home_ and _comfort_ and _heaven_ and about ten other things, and—”

“Noh-Varr.” Tommy has finally turned, and is staring at him, clearly confused. “What are you trying to say?”

“Look, I'm sorry, clearly my grasp of English is failing me—”

“ _Noh-Varr._ What are you _saying_ to me.”

“I—” Noh-Varr stares at Tommy for a moment, and the only thing that makes sense is to slide his hands up the other man's arms to his face and pull him in for a kiss. “Tommy Shepherd, you made me welcome when none on this world would take me in. You spoke for me to your friends. You _teach_ me. You—I—Tommy, I have no home that is not with you. You are my home. You are _hala._ ”

Tommy's shoulders have hunched again, but he hasn't tried to pull away, he's just staring down at the floor and he says, uselessly, “Please don't leave.”

“I will _never_ leave you.” His hands are still on Tommy's face, and Tommy is grabbing his wrists like they're an anchor. He's starting to feel panicky himself, like if he doesn't manage to say this properly it'll stop being true, and if it stops being true then what's the point? What's the point of trying to learn about Earth things if he can't properly express this to an Earth person? “I love you, Tommy—”

Tommy crawls out of his chair and straddles Noh-Varr's lap, still unsmiling, still looking tense and frightened and unhappy. “Noh-Varr, if you say my last name again I swear I'll kill you.”

He feels something sort of crash inside his chest. “Does that mean you don't—”

“No, roach boy, it means I love you, shut up, stop trying to talk.”

“So you _do—_ ”

“ _Noh-Varr._ Learning time. What happened ten minutes ago was an Earth thing called Tommy freaking out and being an asshole. What happened _after_ that is what we call you being the only person on this planet I don't hate even a little. What's happening _now_ is called shut up, I love you, kiss me before I freak out again.”

Noh-Varr is only too happy to oblige.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone feeling better?
> 
> Good.
> 
> Tomorrow...SEX.


	25. Mine Mine Mine/Kree Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Gazing into each others' eyes
> 
> WARNING: NSFW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cough cough* SO. Yes. This is a sex chapter. Dialogue in brackets is spoken in Kree.
> 
> Have fun! ^_^
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Mine Mine Mine_ : "[In Your Eyes](http://youtu.be/B3kFPBtc9BE)," Peter Gabriel  
>  _Kree Things_ : "[E.T.](http://youtu.be/OehxXNCYvTM)," Katy Perry feat. Kanye West

_Mine Mine Mine_

Billy's eyes glow blue as he soundproofs the room, because after the day they've all had, and the fight that he and Teddy have just had, he doesn't really feel like having anyone overhear them. They've all got their own stuff to deal with tonight, if the hissing argument he heard from Noh-Varr's room and the sound of Kate crying downstairs are any indication. Teddy looks confused as the magic lights up his face, and for a moment Billy feels the warm roar of anger in his chest again, but there are _better_ things he could be doing with all that energy. His hands are still on Teddy's chest, so he twists his hands in the shirt that Teddy is, frustratingly, _still wearing,_ and pulls him down so that their mouths meet.

It's not really a happy kiss, it's an angry kiss, but somehow the anger makes it _sweeter,_ and Teddy's hands, which have been hanging sort of uselessly at his sides, come up and rest on Billy's waist. Bare hands on bare skin have this heat-lightning fizz, and Teddy _definitely_ shouldn't still have a shirt on when Billy's in just his underwear. So he grabs the hem and tugs insistently, and their mouths only stop touching for the few seconds it takes for the shirt to come off over Teddy's head and get tossed in the corner.

Then Teddy's hands go back to his waist, and _his_ hands go directly to Teddy's belt, _pull-tug-slide_ and now _that's_ in the corner with the heap of the shirt. Getting his fly open is just as easy, and Billy shoves down jeans and boxers together and digs his fingers into Teddy's hips, pulling him forward. He ducks his head to bite the side of Teddy's neck, and the blonde gasps and says, “So am I making it up to you now?”

“It's a start. This is progress.” He grins against the side of Teddy's neck, and the warm angry knot is uncurling into something that feels _much_ better, something that mitigates the flaming heat of the night. When he sticks out his tongue Teddy tastes like salt and sweat and summer, and he traces a line with his mouth along his boyfriend's collarbone and mutters an affectionate, “Mine,” into the hollow of his throat.

Teddy runs a hand down his back and says, “Yours,” into the top of his head. “Forever.”

They maneuver towards their still-improbably-big bed, Billy awkward because he's going backwards and Teddy because he has to step out of his pants and boxers as they go, and fall onto the mattress because it seems safer than letting go of each other. Normally they'd be talking, they like to talk and to hear each others' voices, but talking's been too dangerous tonight. Touch is better. Touch is harder to misinterpret. Words get mixed up, and they can mean all kinds of things and _do_ all kinds of things, but their hands can say _mine, mine, mine,_ without any interruption.

Billy's the one who lands on his back, but he rolls them over and shucks his boxers in one motion and his tongue is everywhere. His mouth is full of words that he's not saying, and his chest is full of magic and anger and love—if he talks something might _happen,_ he doesn't know what. Instead he pulls and shifts and tugs until Teddy's up on his hands and knees, licks down from the nape of his neck to the cleft of his ass and then plunges his tongue inside him and loves the sound of Teddy trying to say three words at once and ending up with an incoherent grunt.

When he's done with that and Teddy is shaking under his hands he rolls back and pulls the nightstand drawer open, finds the lube and...no condoms in the box. He looks up, and Teddy's watching him in the mirror that's on the wall opposite their bed, and when he holds up the empty box questioningly Teddy nods and says, “It'll only ever be you.”

Billy nods back, and moves back over to him, and hesitates. They've never done this before, not without anything between them at all. Then he bites his lip and pours lube onto his hand, only distracted from the sensations of slicking himself and Teddy warm around his fingers by the sight of his boyfriend's face in the mirror, flushed and watching him.

His hair falls in his face when he's pushing in, and all he can focus his eyes on is the line of Teddy's shoulders, the shape of his back, _oh,_ there are so many things he wants to say that he doesn't know which _one_ to say, but he can _thrust_ and Teddy gasps and says, “Oh, Bee, _look_ at you.”

He looks up and the room fills with blue light, and his glowing eyes meet Teddy's in the mirror, and finally he can speak, he can say, _“IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou IwantyouIwantyouIwantyou mineminemine,”_ as the light from his eyes makes Teddy glow like some kind of alien god.

He would take apart the world brick by brick to keep Teddy looking at him like that, and there's nothing they can do but watch each other in the mirror and move together.

\--

_Kree Things_

He carries Tommy upstairs when Tommy points out that engaging in involved amorous activity in communal spaces is considered impolite. Negotiating the stairs is difficult with Tommy's legs around his waist, but when he suggests that perhaps he let go Tommy just bites his shoulder, which almost makes him reconsider the whole moving-upstairs thing in the first place. They go to Tommy's room, which has the dual advantage of being closer and not having been the site of any recent conflicts, and Noh-Varr pushes the door open with his hip while scrabbling at the hem of Tommy's (his) undershirt. Somehow he can't manage it, it's too complicated of an action right now, so instead he just grabs the collar at the back and rips, and Tommy makes a kind of yowling noise and says, “Ok, that _shouldn't_ be that hot.”

“It shouldn't? Is that an Earth thing?”

“No, that's a _sanity_ thing. I should _not_ get off on the fact that you could probably break me.”

Noh-Varr grins and shuts the door with his foot. “So you like it, then.” He tosses the shredded shirt to one side and catches Tommy's wrists, forcing them behind his back. “You like that I'm stronger than you.”

Tommy's pupils expand vastly, his eyes going black in the low light, and with his legs around Noh-Varr's waist it's easy to feel his erection pressing against Noh-Varr's stomach. “We, uh, we can talk about that later, maybe. Not tonight. We can talk about that when there _isn't_ actually something I think I need my ass kicked for.”

“That's _not_ what I want to do to your ass.” Noh-Varr lets go of Tommy's wrists to stroke down his back, shoving his boxers down to grab the ass in question, and Tommy seizes his hair and moans into his mouth.

When they finally manage to get to the bed Tommy pulls back long enough to say, “We're doing this, right? This is all really happening? You love me, I love you, we're going to have sex _right now._ ”

Something sort of _shorts out_ in Noh-Varr's brain, so instead of English he defaults to Kree, and he purrs, “ <To conquer you would be a great honor.>”

Tommy _twitches_ , full-bodied, and they fall back against the mattress. “ _Ohgod_ was that Kree for you're going to fuck my brains out? Because that's what it sounded like.”

“<That was the plan.>” Noh-Varr pulls his own boxer-briefs off, wrestles Tommy out of his underwear, and traces a pattern with his tongue on the side of Tommy's neck.

“ _Shit._ That's, yeah, we're doing that. Right now. Shit, I don't know what to, I haven't actually _done_ this before.”

“I have.” Noh-Varr smiles down at him. “I will teach you.”

“You _have?_ Oh, wait, right, dude girlfriend. Say something else in Kree, I don't know why, it's so hot, it's like porn Klingon or something. Oh, god, did I just say _porn Klingon?_ Am I turning into a nerd? I—”

“<Homeworld of my heart, I would rule you and be ruled by you.>” Tommy groans, and Noh-Varr fumbles in the nightstand for the little bottle that he knows is in there. It's hard to find without looking, but he can't take his eyes off Tommy's, too fascinated by the way they gleam in the low light. Finally his fingers close around it, and he says, “<I would carry your scent with me into battle.>”

“I have _no_ idea what you're saying but it's oh god that's your finger. That's. I. _Oh._ ”

“<The feeling of your skin against mine will armor me against all foes. The taste of you in my mouth will be my warcry.>”

“That's, ok, why haven't we done this before. I, ah—” Tommy arches up off the bed, eyes wide, mouth open and soundless. The green of his eyes is the only color that Noh-Varr can see. “It's very, that feels—”

Noh-Varr leans forward, pressing Tommy's knees back against his chest, and focuses enough to say, in English, “With your permission.”

“Yes, yes, ok, fuck me, permission granted, Noh-Varr seriously if you don't get in me now I'll fucking _kill_ you, I'm going to oh.” Tommy's fingers move in little pattering motions up and down his sides, scrabbling somehow for purchase against his skin or perhaps simply touching as much of him as possible as he presses in. “I think I, oh god, everyone can hear us fucking, can't they? Am I a noisy fuck? Am I—”

Noh-Varr thrusts doubly, tongue into Tommy's mouth and cock into _him,_ oh, the _heat_ of it, in comparison the night has a wintry chill. Tommy makes another noise, one without as many words included, and against his lips Noh-Varr says, “ <Lover, my breath is a salute to you. I will obey you with my body. I would honor you above all others, I would kneel in the shadow of your soul and call you my general.>” At this point he's talking on instinct, his grip tearing holes in the sheets while Tommy's nails make red tracks in his back. “<Lover, all perfection is your perfection. All purity is your purity. Hala, you are everything that I desire.>”

He's quoting. Merree would laugh at him, if she heard.

“Noh-Varr if I let go of you I'm going to collapse and I need a little _help_ here.”

Noh-Varr blinks. “I'm sorry, I'm being very rude.” He works a hand between them and begins to stroke Tommy's cock in time with his thrusts. “I haven't done this in a while.”

“God, I _hope_ not, I think I'd die if I did this too oh _fuck, Noh-Varr,_ ok why don't we do this _all the time._ ” He bites his lip and _clenches_ around Noh-Varr's cock, and it's too much, it's—

He hears music as he comes, and sees green. _My lover has green eyes and white hair and is mine forever._

A few more strokes and Tommy is arching again, climaxing hot on his stomach, and then there's a long moment where no thought happens at all, but in which they somehow manage to come apart briefly and then back together, side by side on the bed. Tommy has somehow arranged things so that Noh-Varr is squarely on the wet patch.

After a moment Tommy says, “So. Um. I love you.”

Noh-Varr grins at the glorious absurdity of it all. “I love you, Tommy Shepherd.”

“Hey, what did I say about last names?”

“Um. Don't?”

“That's right. So what were you saying?”

“Um.” Noh-Varr wipes lube off his hand onto the sheets and then runs a hand through his hair nervously. “I was quoting.”

“Quoting _what?_ ”

“An opera.”

Tommy sits bolt upright in bed. “Ok, did you seriously say you just quoted opera during sex?”

“Singing is the only kind of music we had on Hala. Making instruments is a waste of physical resources, and we use opera as a mnemonic device. It's, uh, the one I was quoting is one of my favorites. I used to use it to kickstart my neural shunt if I got a concussion. It's very popular.”

Tommy stares at him for a moment, green eyes shining in the light from the window, and says, “I'm letting that pass for now because I feel too good to give you shit. But I'm totally making fun of you for it tomorrow.”

“I'll prepare myself for that. Honestly I deserve it. It's a popular opera—one of the great heroic histories—but it's not very good.”

“We should change the sheets, maybe. Or go sleep in your bed.”


	26. A Private Affair/Accidentally On Purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Getting married

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part one is for Zethsaire, who loves fluff and claims not to. Part two is for Billywick, who asked for it to happen like that. And part three is for everyone who doesn't ship Kate and Miss A yet. ^_^
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _A Private Affair_ : "[It's Only Time](http://youtu.be/4lGvekjqDCg)," the Magnetic Fields  
>  _Accidentally On Purpose_ : "[You Never Can Tell](http://youtu.be/KeKPkGflDB4)," Chuck Berry

_A Private Affair_

“You know, if you guys wanted to have a big celebration and actually _invite_ people I would've helped.” Kate drums her nails on the courthouse wall, looking unimpressed with the facade. She's wearing bigger sunglasses than usual to hide the dark circles under her eyes; even after they all purged their excess of negative energy or whatever it was, none of them really slept well last night. “It could've been fun to plan a wedding.”

Teddy shrugs. “Northstar and Kyle Jinadu already did the big spectacle wedding thing. They're famous. We're not.”

“Oh, shut up, we're totally famous, that's not why.”

“Well, we were...talking, last night, and we realized that we both really hate big parties.” Billy shuffles his feet, looking vaguely apologetic, and fidgets with his tie. “And, well, you got us these suits already, and everyone was _here..._ well, all our friends at least. My parents might kill me. Especially since we hadn't actually _told_ them we were planning on getting married.”

“You have to admit, it is _really_ picturesque.” Miss America is leaning against the wall next to Kate, watching them with a sort of indulgent amusement. “They look nice in those tuxedos, and they _are_ eloping. Very romantic.”

“Is it still eloping if we brought you guys with us?” Billy frowns. “Teddy? Thoughts? Are we eloping?”

“I think to elope it has to be just the two of you.” Noh-Varr takes a moment to stare into space at a point somewhere just past Teddy's head, as if this helps him sort through his mental dictionary of the English language. “And a ladder might be required, although I suspect that's exaggeration for comedic effect and nothing to do with the actual process of elopment.”

Tommy stares at him and then thuds his head against Noh-Varr's shoulder. “Ladies and gentlemen, my boyfriend, who learned English from a dictionary.”

Teddy glances down at Billy nervously and says, “All right. Bee. Billy. Let's do this. If you still want to.”

“Of course I still want to. Not letting you off that easily.” Billy grabs his hand and hauls him into the building, and their friends follow after them like a trail of dressy-casual ducklings.

The whole process takes surprisingly little time, especially for something relatively new legally and that involves filling out forms and signing papers. At the end of it, though, Billy and Teddy are _officially_ married, with a certificate and everything, and they both find that the realization of it is surprisingly relaxing. Permanence. It's a thing they have now—not as if they didn't have it before, but now they're not the only people who know it. Everyone knows. Their friends know. Their family knows (or will, soon enough). The _world_ knows. It's something that has to be acknowledged now.

When they get out of the courthouse again, Billy and Teddy are ready to head straight for somewhere to eat lunch, but Kate grabs both their collars. “Boys. Hold up a second.”

They stop, startled, and Billy says, “What? What is it? Did we forget something? Oh god we forgot something didn't we.”

“Nope, nothing like that.” She digs in her purse and pulls out her phone. “You've denied me a picturesque wedding to plan, I demand at least one photo of you two on the steps here. I'll have it blown up and we can frame it for the lair.”

“Actually that's a good idea.” Teddy gets out his phone and hands it to her, going slightly pink. They're attracting a small crowd of onlookers, most of whom look absolutely thrilled to see two nice-looking young men in suits standing hand in hand, and it's a little awkward. “Take one on my phone, too?”

“Well, sure. Tommy, Noh-Varr, Miss A? We're all taking pictures, right?”

The others murmur their assent and produce two more phones and (in Noh-Varr's case) a small digital camera. Kate backs up to frame her shot, smiles at them, and says, “When you're ready, guys.”

Billy looks up at his _husband,_ they are _married_ now, and says, because he can't think of anything else to say, “Why, Mr. Altman, fancy meeting you here. It's so unexpected.”

Teddy grins at him, says, “Unexpected _indeed,_ Mr. Altman,” and sweeps him into an absurdly dramatic romance-movie kiss.

Phone cameras snap. The small crowd applauds.

This is what life is supposed to be.

\--

_Accidentally On Purpose_

They end up heading to the diner they ate at the day Billy and Teddy moved in, because apparently that's just where they go out to eat now. Billy and Teddy have reservations for dinner, of course, but nobody's willing to miss out on a big group lunch. There's even a booth free in the best corner, the one against the windows with a good view of the street. When they've staked out their spot they pull over another small table so that there's space for everyone, and the waitress comes over smiling the indulgent smile of someone who's seen a lot of teenagers and is pleased to have met a few who behave well.

After they've placed their order, Noh-Varr nods to Teddy and Billy and says, “Congratulations again. That was much simpler than I thought human weddings were.”

“Most of them are way more complicated.” Billy is building a small stepped pyramid out of the containers of jam. “We didn't want to deal with the messy confusing stuff, so...”

The waitress comes back with their drinks. Kate takes a contemplative sip of her coffee. “What are weddings like where you're from?”

Tommy sighs a tiny sigh, because he's all too familiar with how ready Noh-Varr is to start evangelizing Kree culture. And true, Noh-Varr's eyes light up a little, and he smiles at her with genuine pleasure. “Well, it's mostly very straightforward. In the traditional Kree ceremony there's a statement of intent, and the acceptance of that intent before an available ranking officer—that'd be me, I don't think there are any other Kree officers around. Then, after the statement of intent, there's typically a, ah, physical consummation, accompanied or preceded by a...” he blinks. “A recitation of...vows...”

Everyone looks puzzled when he trails off. Everyone, that is, except Tommy, who blinks as well, and then frowns, and then his eyes go wide and he grabs Noh-Varr's forearm and says, “Noh-Varr, what exactly did you _say_ last night? When. When we were...you know.”

“I. Ah.” Noh-Varr can't stop blinking; it's like his brain's shut down. “I may have gotten ahead of myself.

“You said it was opera, right? Your favorite opera? Just that.” Tommy's grip on Noh-Varr's arm is tight, and the others are staring. Kate's already caught on, and she looks like she's suppressing a smile.

“Yes, it was. I was quoting a...I was quoting a scene where...”

“ _Noh-Varr._ Was it a, did _you,_ are _we..._?”

Now Miss America's figured it out, and Billy and Teddy look fascinated. Noh-Varr blinks a few more times, for good measure, and...blushes. Which is the weirdest thing they've all seen in ages. “Under the laws of Hala we, ah, we may in fact now be married.”

Tommy stares at him, eyes wide. “Well. That's. Wow. Um.”

A brief, frozen silence, and then Miss America takes a sip of her coffee, grins, and says, “How dost thou, Benedick, the married man?”

Tommy says, faintly, “I guess I _was_ thinking of changing my last name.”

Another pause, and then Noh-Varr sort of precipitates forward in his seat and wraps his arms around Tommy, burying his face in the side of the other man's neck. “You are my husband and I love you.”

Everyone else at the table claps as Tommy very slowly raises his arms and hugs Noh-Varr back. “Love you too. So. Um. How long would it take you to teach me Kree?”

Noh-Varr straightens and looks down at him. “That would depend on your facility for language absorption. You're intelligent and you do everything quickly, so probably not too long. Why?”

“ _Reasons,_ Noh-Varr. If you're going to be pulling things like this a lot then I'd like to understand what you're _saying._ ”

“Are you upset with me?”

Four heads turn as one from watching Noh-Varr to watching Tommy, and Teddy leans over to whisper, “This is better than television.”

Tommy flips him off without looking and shakes his head. “Actually, no. Surprisingly not. But in the _future_ I would like to be _informed._ ”

Beat.

“Wait, does that make me Tommy-Varr? Because that has _no_ rhythm.”

\--

Kate bumps Miss America when they reach for the ketchup at the same time, and they both blush, but when their hands come to rest on the table again they rest together, Kate's bowstring-callused fingertips in Miss America's palm. And when the waitress comes by with mustard Miss America stretches up and out to get it, and when she relaxes again her arm is on the back of the seat, behind Kate, her hand barely brushing Kate's shoulder. Nobody says anything about it, but Teddy catches Tommy's eye and winks, cocking his head at the girls, and Tommy hides his smile with a mouthful of burger.


	27. Split Screen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: On one of their birthdays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^_^ Birthdays!
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
> "[Birthday](http://youtu.be/QHRMX9Brq0s)," the Beatles

“Good morning, Bee.”

 “Good morning, Tommy.” 

“Remember what day it is?”  
“Of course I remember, you goof.” 

“This is an important day for you. I checked the calendar.”  
“...holy shit is it my birthday? I totally forgot.” 

“So do we have plans? I mean I know _you_ said there were plans, but you haven't _told_ me any of them. We've both got the day off, so...”  
“That's because they were a _surprise_ before today. And I thought _I_ was supposed to be the impatient one.”  
“I can be impatient! I'm allowed!” 

“I can't believe I forgot it was my birthday. I'm eighteen today! This is a milestone! How could I forget _my own birthday?_ I remembered it was _Billy's_ birthday, I got _him_ a present, but I forget about _myself._ ”  
“Tommy, don't worry. _I_ remembered. Just because I don't have a birthday myself doesn't mean I can't celebrate the birthdays of others.”  
“I didn't even know you knew what a birthday _was._ ” 

“We're...oh my god. We're going to see _Into The Woods_? I've wanted to see that for _ages._ ”  
“Front row seats.”  
“Thank you! ...oh, wow, Tommy's going to make fun of me _so much_ for being this excited about a musical.”  
“Actually he helped get the tickets. Apparently he knows a guy.” 

“Avenged Sevenfold at the Garden? Holy shit, I thought this show was sold out.”  
“It is. Kate helped me get the tickets.”  
“And we're...shit. Oh, holy shit. We're going to be looking right up their _noses._ If we weren't apparently already married I would marry you again.”  
“I'm glad you're happy. She said you'd like them.” 

“We also have dinner reservations. And we're going out to lunch with everyone and having a party. We're going to a place Miss A likes for that, she got it all set up. Korean barbecue. It'll be good.”  
“Wow, how did you guys manage to plan all this without me figuring it out? Does Tommy know about the party?”  
“Nope. He totally forgot it was his birthday too. Noh's probably springing it on him now, if they're awake. But for now...”  
“...for now?” 

“We're also going somewhere for dinner, and there's going to be a party of some variety, I don't really know most of the details. Apparently we're having Korean barbecue? I don't know what that is.”  
“Ok, for one, now I feel like a huge flake for not _noticing_ you guys doing all this awesome plotting. Also, you were doing all this plotting and you didn't think to ask anyone what Korean barbecue is?”  
“I was doing other research.”  
“...other research?”

“Let's focus on _this._ ”

“About popular human birthday customs.”

“Teddy, you _oh._ ”

“Oh my _god_ Noh your _mouth._ ”

“…”

“…”

“ _Oh_ crap I didn't soundproof the _room—_ ”

“Nobody better be, _oh,_ be eavesdropping on us—”

“I think I'm—”

“I think I'm—”

“…”

“…”

_“Oh...”_

_“Oh...”_

“Happy birthday, Billy.”

“Happy birthday, Tommy.” 

“Morning, Kate.”  
“Morning, Missy.”  
“So the boys aren't up yet.”  
“Of _course_ they aren't, you can practically hear them getting it on from here. I need to have this whole building soundproofed; I think Noh did some Googling and found out about birthday blowjobs.”  
“Wouldn't surprise me. Round of Street Fighter while we're waiting for them to get up?”  
“So what you're saying is that you feel like getting your ass handed to you.”  
“Bring it, rich girl.”  
“Chun-Li versus C. Viper. Match for the ages.”


	28. Joyride/Ride The Rails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Doing something ridiculous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It gets pretty ridiculous.
> 
> Your soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _Joyride_ : "[Sloop John B](http://youtu.be/ubAjEjkJIJo)," the Beach Boys  
>  _Ride The Rails_ : "[Tommy-Gun](http://youtu.be/dhcGNN9r1D4)," Royal Republic

_Joyride_

“Noh-Varr's going to _kill_ us.”

“Oh, come on, Bee.” Teddy's sitting at the spaceship's controls, grinning as they lift slowly out of the Earth's atmosphere. “If he _didn't_ want us borrowing his spaceship and taking it to the moon then he wouldn't have told us where to find it and how to get it up and running.”

“I'm pretty sure that was in case of _emergencies,_ Teddy.” Billy is perched on the other seat, chewing anxiously on his lower lip even as he stares out at the approaching stars. “Although this _is—_ shit, watch out, there's a thing!”

Startled, Teddy pulls sharply to the left, and they narrowly miss taking out what appears to be a DirecTV satellite. Then he has to dodge again to pull around a piece of debris. A panel on the dashboard lights up, displaying a message in characters that Billy doesn't recognize. Teddy, however, glances at it, says, “Oh, _good,_ ” and slaps the button underneath it.

Billy blinks. “What'd you just do?”

“Automatic course correction. It'll take us around obstacles.”

“That's what it said? How could you tell?”

“I...guess I can read Kree?”

“Since _when?_ ”

“I don't _know!_ Maybe it's genetic! Whoa, shit—” The automatic course correction pulls them around another satellite, and they keep going and going and then—

—they're out of the atmosphere and staring at the unfiltered stars and Billy breathes out slowly and says, “Wow.”

They gaze, heartstopped, at the expanse of space before them, and then Teddy drops his voice uncannily low and says, in a careful impersonation of Patrick Stewart, “Space. The final fronte-ah.”

Billy punches him in the arm. “Picard-loving heretic.”

“Kirk-obsessed grandpa.”

“You know Noh-Varr prefers Sisko?”

“Oh my god, we have to burn him at the stake now. I don't _want_ to burn him, I _like_ him.”

“We don't have to _burn_ him, you dweeb. We just have to reeducate him. I think I'll start with 'City on the Edge of Forever.'”

“ _Or_ we could start him with 'Best of Both Worlds' so that he can learn about what's _really_ important.” Pause. “Or we could just show him _Farscape._ I think he'd like _Farscape._ ”

“Ooh, he _would_ like _Farscape._ ”

Billy gets up out of the copilot's chair, since he's a pretty useless copilot anyway, and sits in Teddy's lap instead, throwing his legs over one of the armrests. Teddy looks down at him and laughs. “I don't think this is regulation flight posture.”

“I don't think this is a regulation flight, so who cares?”

And speaking of regulation flights, a light goes on near Teddy's left elbow, and a speaker crackles to life. _“Unidentified vessel, this is the SHIELD orbiter. State your business in Earth space. Over.”_

They both stifle laughter, and Teddy slaps the reply button and says, in his Picard voice again, “Just enjoying the view. Over.”

There's a pause, and then the SHIELD agent on the speaker says, _“Captain Picard?”_

Billy has to bite the side of his hand to keep from laughing audibly as Teddy drops the Picard voice to reply with, “Um...no. Sorry. Just screwing around. Wanted to get a look at the Earth from outside. Um. Over.”

 _“Don't worry about it.”_ The SHIELD agent sounds relieved. _“Just don't cause any trouble. It's been a weird day here. Over.”_

“What kind of weird? Over.”

_“You being Captain Picard would have been almost normal. There were fairies earlier. Over.”_

“Well, we're just out for a cruise. Shouldn't be around for more than a couple of hours. No trouble, we promise. Over.”

_“Sounds good to me. I'll hold you to that. Over and out.”_

The speaker shuts off again, and now that they can't be overheard they take the opportunity to dissolve into helpless giggling as the autopilot calmly steers them around floating pieces of debris. The cockpit of the ship is surprisingly warm and cozy, and the pilot's chair is big enough for them to nestle together as they laugh themselves sick. It takes about fifteen minutes for it all to wear off, and then Billy glances out the front of the ship and says, “Hey, Tee. If I can magic us some air, you want to be the first gay couple to make out on the moon?”

\--

_Ride The Rails_

“No.”

“Please?”

“I'm not wearing it.”

“Just the once?”

“Is this a fetish?”

“All Kree have a military fetish. It's an important part of our culture.”

Tommy stares at Noh-Varr for a moment and then sighs and says, “Well, if it's part of your _culture..._ but we have to do my thing next.”

Noh-Varr's eyes light up. “Anything you want, Tommy.”

There's a whirl of movement, and then Tommy looks down at himself and says, “You know, it doesn't feel all that different from my Speed outfit. Where did you _get_ a Kree captain's uniform, anyway?”

“I... _may_ have stolen it.” Noh-Varr's already moved in _very_ close, reaching out to run his fingers along the shoulder seams in Tommy's outfit, looking him over with a gaze so hungry that it _almost_ makes Tommy uncomfortable. “It looks good on you. You look...commanding.”

Before things can get too _physical_ , Tommy grabs his wrists and says, “ _Whoa_ there, happy hands. Six Flags _first._ Then maybe _later_ you can grope me.”

They run all the way to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey in the way where they're not _quite_ racing, because Tommy can go so fast that racing is kind of pointless, and when they get there Noh-Varr sweeps Tommy up and clears the fence around the park in one massive leap. They land in a spot that's mercifully clear of park-goers, behind a concession stand, and Noh-Varr says, “So which one are we going on first?”

“Kingda Ka, obviously.” Tommy points to it. “That one there. I might need you to help me with the really steep parts.”

Noh-Varr cranes his neck to see the top of the roller coaster. “I think you might, yes.”

They race to the coaster and leap over the queue, landing light-footed on the rails in front of the first car. The ride attendants don't see them somehow, but the children in the first car shriek with delight and shout about alien invaders. Tommy winks at them.

Then there's a clattering sound, and the cars start moving, and Noh-Varr and Tommy are off, running on the rails in front of the first car. Tommy's arms are out at his sides a bit for balance, but he moves too fast to tip over, and Noh-Varr can of course stand on pretty much anything. On the steep up-slopes Noh-Varr picks him up, and then at the top of each one they stop for a moment and reposition so they can slide down, fast, like surfers riding waves, like skiiers without skis.

Each coaster gets one run, and then they go back around, running the ones they really enjoyed again, moving too fast for security to catch them or for anyone to get a good picture. Bizarro gets three runs, the third one side by side with their outstretched hands clasped over empty air and a car full of screaming park-goers just close enough behind them to be exciting.

When they stop to catch their breath, a little boy points at Tommy and tugs at his mother's sleeve and says, “Look, Mom, it's Captain Marvel!”

Tommy looks down at the ringed planet on his chest and says, “Noh, I'm going to kill you for making me wear this thing.”

“No, you won't,” Noh-Varr says, breezily. “You like me too much.”

“Ok, true. But I'm going to make _you_ wear something ridiculous next time.”

“Oh?”

“Namor. I'm making you dress up as Namor. I always liked him.”

“He beat me up once, actually.”

“Well, then, you can get revenge on him by doing me wearing one of his suits. I bet we could break into Avengers Mansion and steal one. And then when we're done with it we'll find out wherever he's living right now and leave it in his room.” Tommy hears a shout and looks up to see a cadre of security guards bearing down on them. “Oh shit, it's the fuzz. Let's move!”

Noh-Varr picks up him again and runs for the fence, and Tommy shakes a fist at the security guards over his shoulder, grinning, and shouts, “Anarchy! Anarchy!”

As they fly over the fence Noh-Varr says, “Tommy, I don't believe in anarchy, I thought we'd talked about that.”

“I don't believe in anarchy either. It's just what you say.”

\--

_Text Message from [Katie]_

[Hey, bubblegum.]

[Hey, rich girl.]

[Shakespeare In The Park is doing Twelfth Night today.]

[One of my favorites.]

[Go with me?]

[Meet you at yours in ten.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Noh-Varr did in fact steal a Kree captain's uniform for sexual purposes.
> 
> I'm naming the Kate/Miss America ship Starshot.


	29. The Unquiet Moon/In Case Of Systems Failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Doing something sweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sweet you may get diabetes.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _The Unquiet Moon_ : "[I'm Your Moon](http://youtu.be/y_ViBQuIO2c)," Jonathan Coulton  
>  _In Case Of Systems Failure_ : "[From Some Dying Star](http://youtu.be/YD6CZb4qykA)," Future Bible Heroes

_The Unquiet Moon_

The gray sand before them is uncanny in reflected light and the glow from Billy's eyes, and they've taken a blanket from the ship so they can sit together, picnic style, and watch the Earth rise. It's a little obscured by the force field bubble around them, the one that Teddy figured out that the ship could generate, but that's really only a touch of false heat-haze, wavering a little in front of the stars as it holds in air and heat for them. Billy's still doing magic, because it's not _quite_ warm enough to be comfortable with just the ship's force field, but it's just a background spell. It's like flying. He doesn't even have to think about it.

He leans his head on Teddy's shoulder as the Earth crests the horizon, swirled with clouds and painfully blue, and Teddy wraps an arm around him and rests his cheek on Billy's hair. “That's a hell of a thing to see.”

“Yeah.” Billy edges in a little closer. “I don't think I even care about being the first gay couple to make out on the Moon anymore. I just want to look at the Earth.”

“Wait, this _doesn't_ make you incredibly horny? Because I don't think I've ever been more turned on in my life. That is one sexy planet, right there.”

Billy snorts a laugh and ends up sticking his face right in Teddy's armpit.

Teddy shies away. “That tickles!”

“The Earth makes you horny.” Grinning, Billy slides down so that he can lie on the ground with his head on Teddy's knee, looking up at him. Blue magic-light spills over his husband's face. “You're adorable.”

Teddy smiles at him.

For a while more they just sit, on the Moon, looking at the Earth, breathing air made for them by the little ship that sits nearby. They can track the signs of life in the universe by the slow-moving satellites, the International Space Station in the distance, the SHIELD orbiter. Once the Moon was a quiet place, supposedly, untouched by anyone, but if they wanted to they could bound around it and see where other people have stood. Astronauts. Aliens. Superheroes.

Billy looks out at the Earth and then up at Teddy and says, “You know, I think I like you better.”

“Hm?”

“Than the Earth, that is. I think I like you better than the Earth. You're better-looking.”

In response Teddy just reaches down and starts playing with his hair, combing it this way and that, smoothing it out so that it lies to one side, running his fingers through it. “I like you better than the Earth too, Bee.”

After another few minutes of sitting in silence Billy's stomach rumbles.

Teddy blinks at the sound. “Right. Did we bring food?”

“Maybe?” Billy digs in his pockets and pulls out what he finds, although he leaves his wallet and keys. “We have...Skittles. And a condom. Not really lunch material.”

“That sounds like it should mean something really profound. Looks like the condom's grape flavored, though. So _almost_ lunch.” Teddy plucks the bag of Skittles from his hand and tears it open. “Here, open wide.”

Feeling sort of silly and contented at the same time, Billy opens his mouth and lets Teddy feed him individual Skittles, resisting the urge to lick his fingers _too_ much because that _would_ lead to making out on the Moon, and they _do_ have this condom, and if they get into anything too serious then someone will probably show up and that would be awkward. The candies melt sweet on his tongue and the coating gets onto Teddy's hand, and when half the bag is gone Billy takes the rest and reciprocates. Teddy _does_ lick his fingers, because he has no sense of fair play.

Finally Billy says, absently, “Sometimes I worry that none of this is real and that I've just gone crazy and dreamed it all. It could happen, you know. Wanda's gone crazy before. She's my mom. I could go nuts too.”

“You're not going to go nuts.” Teddy strokes his hair. “Not while I'm around.”

“Thanks. I'll hold you to that.” Billy turns his face to press it against Teddy's stomach, his eyes closing sleepily. “You're the only guy for me, Teddy.”

“And you're the only guy for me. My very own dangerous, potential-supervillain chaos magician.” Teddy's hand comes to rest, fingers twined in his hair. “If I ever tell you anything different then you should assume that I've been kidnapped and replaced with a _different_ devastatingly handsome alien.”

“My very own Skrull invader.” Billy yawns. “We should go home and get some real food before I fall asleep here and lose control of my heat spell.”

“Yeah. We should do that.”

But they don't move for a while longer, as in the sky the Earth shines brightly.

\--

_In Case Of Systems Failure_

They get back to the lair from Six Flags and Tommy vibrates them through the door so that neither one of them has to fumble for keys. It's been a long day, and they're both tired, surprisingly so, sweating from the sun's heat and the long run and breathing a little harder than usual. It's a moment to get their shoes off and then they collapse on a couch, Noh-Varr sprawling his long legs out while Tommy flops down lengthwise with his head in Noh-Varr's lap and one arm hanging over the backrest.

“That was fun,” Tommy says, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “We should do it again sometime, only with me _not_ in a Kree military uniform.”

“We could do this again with you not wearing anything.” Noh-Varr smiles faintly. “That could be fun.”

“Pervert.”

“Well, I'd be naked too. Otherwise it would be unfair.”

“ _Such_ a pervert.” Tommy stretches luxuriously and yawns. “Creepy alien pervert.”

“You love it.”

“True. Very true. I need chocolate.” He blurs for a moment, and reappears with a bag of Rolos. “Chocolate for me.”

Noh-Varr reaches for the chocolates, scowls when Tommy holds them out of his reach, and grabs the speedster's arm carefully while he retrieves them. “Sharing is good.”

“You watch too much _Sesame Street._ ”

“No, I just like chocolate. _Sesame Street_ unnerves me. The sight of humans interacting with puppets is unsettling.”

“Very true.”

Noh-Varr extracts a chocolate, unwraps it, and pops it into Tommy's open mouth, and then has one himself. It's a hot day, but the window is open and there's a breeze coming through, so it's really not that bad. Actually it's just hot enough for the chocolates to melt a little in their hands, and so after a few minutes they stop trying to have any more and just sit together.

After a while Noh-Varr starts to sing quietly, and Tommy, who's been starting to drift off, opens his eyes and says, “What are you singing?”

Noh-Varr actually blushes a bit. “Nothing. A Kree song.”

“Hey, I thought we talked about you saying things in Kree when we're together. Stuff _happens,_ remember?” Tommy reaches up and taps him lightly on the nose with one finger. “Last time we ended up married.”

“I thought you didn't mind.”

“I _don't_ mind, I just don't want any more surprises. What does it mean?”

“It's really nothing interesting.”

“You're divorcing me, aren't you.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“Tell me what it means, then.”

Noh-Varr sighs and smiles at the same time. “The rough translation is something along the lines of, 'In the unlikely event of a computer systems failure, the engine is designed to lock down the warp drives. To reactivate the warp drives in manual steering mode, press the—' yes?”

Tommy is watching him with unconcealed delight. “That was a _training manual?_ ”

“Well, _yes._ Printed manuals waste physical resources. Emergency protocols are all memorized. We memorize them in the form of songs because a tune is easier to bring to mind than a dry speech.”

“Ok, makes sense.” Tommy thinks about it for a moment. “Sing me one.”

“If you like.” Noh-Varr stares off into the middle distance, pondering, and then says, “The protocols for dealing with hostile enemies of a comparable technological level are particularly melodic.”

“Sing those, then.”

Noh-Varr nods and clears his throat, and after a moment begins to sing something that is not simply melodic but _beautiful,_ in a soaring minor key, his surprisingly deep voice filling the air with music. Sighing, Tommy shifts a bit and settles in, and the breeze from the open window blows through the room smelling for a moment like the sweet hot end of summer.

The emergency-protocol song is complicated, and it has a lot of key changes, and by the time he's finished it Noh-Varr looks down and finds that Tommy has fallen asleep, head in his lap, holding onto one of his hands. He shrugs, and smiles, and falls asleep too.

\--

Kate and Miss America see Shakespeare In The Park do _Twelfth Night_ and eat at a hot dog cart, and then they comb every boutique on Elizabeth Street looking for stars-and-stripes clothes for Miss America to wear. After that they wander through the Museum of Natural History, arguing about types of arrowhead, and when they're done at the museum they head back to Kate's house.

Up in Kate's room, Miss America models her new clothes, and they talk about martial arts and places they'd like to visit, and in the middle of doing patently middle-school “makeovers” Kate pauses. She has the fingers of one hand under Miss America's chin to steady her for the application of lipgloss, and as she looks down at the other woman she thinks about the last time she got to spend the day with Cassie, and how they'd talked about everything they'd wanted to do with their lives.

And now Cassie isn't going to get to do a lot of that.

Life is too short. Maybe this is a phase, maybe it's a crush, maybe it's real and serious and forever, but whatever it is...

_Fuck it._

Miss America's looking up at her, patient, calm in ways that Kate isn't sure she'll _ever_ be, and her mouth is a perfect color already. It doesn't need any makeup.

So Kate puts down the lipgloss wand and leans down and kisses her instead.

And Miss America blinks, startled, and kisses her back.


	30. What Have We Learned?/The Many Uses Of Autopilot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Doing something hot
> 
> Warning: NSFW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god it's the last one.
> 
> Soundtrack for today:
> 
>  _What Have We Learned?_ : "[Dog Days Are Over](http://youtu.be/iWOyfLBYtuU)," Florence and the Machine  
>  _The Many Uses Of Autopilot_ : "[My Time](http://youtu.be/m9rSYYNPQSc)," Minus the Bear

_What Have We Learned?_

It's late October now, not quite Halloween, and the teeth of winter are just starting to sink into the air of the city. Teddy gets out of class mid-afternoon and wrestles his portfolio onto the subway, feeling a little too tired to fly himself home. Luckily it's nowhere near rush hour, and long past lunch, so he has some space to sit without inconveniencing anyone, and anyway it's hardly a long trip.

When he gets back to the lair, Billy is curled up on one of the couches in the living room, reading a book. It's not one that Teddy recognizes—not from one of the shelves in their room, or from the Kaplans' house, but not a library book either. He comes up behind Billy, kissing him on the top of the head as he leans over the back of the couch. “Whatcha reading?”

Billy holds up his book. “It's about meditation. Dr. Strange lent it to me.”

Teddy frowns, surprised. “Dr. Strange?”

“Yep. You know how I've been having lunch with Wanda every couple of weeks? She got me in touch with him. He's giving me lessons. He even said he'd write me a college recommendation.” Billy grins up at him. “I didn't want to tell you right away, I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Wow, that's...that's _great._ Are you learning anything interesting?”

“Lots, really, but _you're_ the one who's actually been in class all day. Shouldn't I be asking you that?”

“ _No._ I've been in _class_ all day. I'm sick of talking about what I did in class. I want to hear about _you._ ” Teddy traces a finger along Billy's upside-down smile. “I want to know what _you_ did. You _know_ what I did.”

“Well...” Billy puts in a bookmark and puts his book to one side. “Right now we're focusing on wordless casting, mostly. Dr. Strange says it's a liability if I have to broadcast my intentions like I do now.”

“Sounds cool. Can you show me?”

The question gets an unexpectedly wicked smile, and Billy says, “Y'know, I think I _can._ ” There's a familiar blur, and then instead of being in the living room they're up on the roof, no jackets or anything, the sky darkening and the breeze chilly against their skin. Before Teddy can say anything, Billy grabs him and kisses him and murmurs into his mouth, “I always miss you when you're in class, so I figured out all kinds of things that I could do to _you_ with my magic. Wanna play Guess What I'm Doing Now?”

Teddy grins, breathless. “I think I'll start by guessing that you're trying to seduce me.”

“Ok, I think if _that_ isn't obvious then I'm doing something _really_ wrong.”

“Nope. Doing it right. Very right. I am _totally_ cool with you seducing me. So why are we on the roof?”

“Because I want to _fly._ ”

“You want to—whoa,” because they're already rising into the air, Billy's arms around his neck, hands in his hair, mouth on his. He wraps his arms around Billy's waist, hooking both thumbs into the waistband of his jeans, and sinks into the kiss.

Up in the air it's cooler, but then they're surrounded by a shimmering blue shield that hold in heat for them, which is good, because Billy's hands are sliding up under his shirt.

Except that they're _not._ Billy's hands are still in his _hair._ But no, those are definitely hands on his chest, and _more_ hands undoing his belt, and when he opens one eye and looks down he sees that he's covered in waves of light. They _are_ Billy's hands. It's _Billy._ It's _magic._ He takes a hitching breath and says, “This better not be something Dr. Strange taught you, because seriously, I am _not_ cool with him teaching you sexy magic.”

“Nope.” Billy's voice in his ear is a little husky, and they're moving along through the air at a fair clip; with the warmth inside their little bubble the breeze on his skin doesn't feel cold, just sort of sexy and sensuous. “I came up with this myself. I've pretty much spent the entire day thinking about blowing you, and it got all mixed up with the stuff we were practicing.”

“Thinking about— _oh,_ ” because now the spell or whatever has gotten to his boxers, and there's the _distinct_ feeling of fingers on his cock, thousands of fingers, stroking and twisting and tugging in _every_ way he likes _all at once._ It feels so good that his eyes practically cross, and his fingers tighten on Billy's waist. Part of him is also freaking out a little about the fact that he's apparently getting a magic handjob from the guy of his dreams while they hang suspended over New York City, but that really only makes it all sexier, because seriously. Magic boyfriend.

Wait, no, magic _husband._ Still getting used to that.

“Are, are you sure can keep us _uuu_ up?”

“You know,” Billy says conversationally, his hands _everywhere,_ “when I was younger, before I met you, I had a crush on Superman.” He's sliding down now, taking a moment to nuzzle at the hollow of Teddy's throat, his lips hot. “And I had this recurring dream, a sex dream really, where we were flying together, and I knew he wouldn't drop me, even though he wasn't really paying attention to flying.”

Teddy's pretty sure that if this was an anime, he'd have fainted from the nosebleed by now. “How am I not surprised that you had a crush on a comic book character?”

“The _point_ being...”

“The point being?” It's hard to concentrate. Billy's hands are clasped in his, are stroking his back, are in his hair and touching his chest, Billy's _actual_ hands are on his hips as they're flying, there is nothing in the world but Billy.

Billy says, “Trust me,” against the golden hair between his legs and swallows him.

The _entire world_ is Billy's mouth, and maybe now with the breeze on his face and sweat on his forehead Teddy can understand how flying could be sexy in anything other than the obvious way where they can _fly_ and that's _sexy._

He opens his eyes and when he comes the sky bursts into a rippling aurora overhead, and then the world blurs and they're back in their darkened bedroom, and he looks up at Billy, and Billy grins and licks his lips and says, “I've been wanting to do that _all day._ ”

Teddy says, feeling sort of dazed and stupid, “I think I've been wanting you to do that for my _entire life._ ”

“Well, then.” Billy stretches out on top of him, resting his head under Teddy's chin. “Next time it's my turn.”

\--

_The Many Uses Of Autopilot_

Today's a day for taking risks, so they've taken the ship way farther than they normally go. Apparently the warp drive or whatever on this thing is no great shakes, but to Tommy it just feels like freedom, skipping out and out and out, farther from home than he's ever been before. He passes Mars, skids through the asteroid belt, describes a massive loop around Jupiter, and stops at Saturn, where the viewscreen lights up with the name of every moon both in Kree and in English.

He's supposed to be learning the weapons systems, so he amused himself by shooting skeet in the rings, leaning forward in the captain's chair like he's playing a video game. The ship has this weirdly intuitive foot-based steering system for when it's in combat mode, and it feels so good to be _using_ his feet for something on this long-ass trip that he forgets about Noh-Varr, sitting in the seat beside him, smiling indulgently. The weapons systems make a little _paff, paff_ noise in the cockpit when they fire, and they disintegrate little rocks and pieces of space debris with unsurprising ease.

After about an hour of rock-shooting he disengages the weapons systems and leans back, thinking that he's just going to fly them around Saturn once or twice more and then they'll go home. It's really _warm_ here anyway, Saturn apparently generates a _lot_ of heat. His shirt and Noh-Varr's have already been tossed off into a corner, and even with air conditioning on it's still weirdly summery on the ship.

He cracks his neck and takes his hands off the controls for just a moment.

This, of course, is when something heavy settles into his lap. Actually, not just _something_ heavy. Noh-Varr.

He looks up at the Kree, startled. “Noh-Varr, what are you doing?”

“Relax,” Noh-Varr whispers, mouth curved in an easy-to-feel smile against Tommy's ear. “I've got it on autopilot.”

“I thought that was _my_ line.”

Fingers skid up his bare sides, ticklish, just barely touching. “Can't it be mine too? I'm allowed to have a sense of humor.”

“No you're _not,_ ” Tommy gasps, pulling away from another ticklish touch on his shoulders. “ _I'm_ the funny one.” He fidgets blindly with Noh-Varr's belt, getting it and the fly on his jeans open only after several tries. “ _I_ say the funny things in this relationship.”

“Well, then, I claim your sense of humor by right of conquest.” Noh-Varr shifts a bit so that he's actually _straddling_ Tommy's lap, as outside the window they're approaching Jupiter. “I think,” _kiss,_ “I'd make a very good,” _kiss,_ “dictator. I can,” _kiss,_ “keep your sense of humor,” _kiss,_ “and show it off on special occasions.”

This last isn't followed by another kiss but by a long lick to the side of Tommy's neck, and Tommy groans and says, “You are the world's sexiest fascist.”

“Several worlds, actually. I think I can safely say that I'm—” Noh-Varr cuts off suddenly, eyes going heavy-lidded as Tommy's warm hand wraps around his cock.

“And you're so modest, too.”

They stop talking for a while, because sometimes there are more interesting things to do with your tongue.

Then Tommy scowls and says, “We don't have any—”

“Bottle in the armrest.”

“Why do we have lube in the armrest?”

“I put it there after that one time when we were doing that test orbit, you remember how that—”

“It's not my fault the Earth is so sexy. Stop talking about why it's there and take your pants off.”

“ _Very_ commanding. See, I _told_ you that once you put on the uniform it never really comes—”

_“Noh-Varr.”_

“Right.”

Noh-Varr's jeans fly into the corner and land on top of their shirts, and then he leans in and licks the shell of Tommy's ear as Tommy fumbles with the lube one-handed, pouring out a little more than he honestly needs, getting it generally where it's needed with some haste before grabbing Noh-Varr's hips and pulling him _down._ Noh-Varr lets out one of those earth-shattering groans of his, which Tommy's starting to think he should _name_ or something, and Tommy grins and rolls his hips upward and then gets caught up in the feeling himself and makes a startled little broken noise. Past Noh-Varr's shoulder, in the viewport, he can see that they're passing through the asteroid belt now, the scenery occasionally blurring for one of those little warp-skips or whatever they are,

Over him, Noh-Varr has his eyes shut, and he's panting as his cock paints lines on Tommy's stomach, hands clasped tightly on the back of the seat, moving just a little slower than Tommy would _really_ like him to.

Tommy gets one hand between them and the other on Noh-Varr's waist and says, “Open your eyes,” and _thrusts_ , and Noh-Varr's eyes snap open again. He pants and bends down and their mouths meet again, and nearby on the console the communications set-up turns on and a voice says, _“Unidentified vessel, this is the SHIELD orbiter. State your business in Earth space. Over.”_

The autopilot system goes _ding,_ and then an automated voice says, _“SHIELD orbiter, this is small craft designation KZ637859-NVTS, Avengers clearance beta. Pilots are busy at the moment. Over.”_

Tommy and Noh-Varr don't even hear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was fun! ^_^

**Author's Note:**

> If you like it, please let me know!


End file.
